System Failure
by phineyj
Summary: House treats a rock star with a mysterious illness, and while he's doing so, discovers a secret concerning Cuddy's past.
1. Chapter 1

Authors' note

This story is co-authored by phineyj and snarkbait and has just been moved to phineyj's listing, so if it looks familiar, that's probably because it is!

The medical case is based on a book, 'Patient' by Ben Watt, a British musician who got sick. Unfortunately he didn't have House around to help him.

But his story inspired us both.

We don't own House, or Ben Watt, and we're not doctors, but the medical content has been researched to be as accurate as we can manage.

We both live for feedback, so if you'd like more chapters, please review! Thanks. Warning: Possible mild spoilers for episodes which have aired in the U.S. to date.

**System Failure**

Prologue, by snark bait

"Sam, please don't go on, you're not well. The fans will understand, you can't help it if you're sick," Cathy said to her husband as he watched the support act wave their way off stage.

"They were great, don't you think? I'm glad we chose them now," Sam replied, as he hugged his stomach tightly. He was trying to hide how much discomfort his belly was really in, but it was getting harder, because the pain there seemed to be intensifying with each passing minute.

Sam looked at his wife, who was also his tour manager. She was wearing a pale pink vest top, with his band's motif on the front: a picture of a brown Coyote howling against a white moon backdrop.

'The Coyotes' was written in black just underneath that. There wasn't a short blonde hair out of place on her head, but the look of worry on her face was unhidden.

He turned away from her and they both peered out at the crowd from the side of the stage.

"Are you listening to me?" Cathy said. Sam glanced quickly at her, then watched as the roadies bounded out and started to set up the musical equipment for his band, who were on next.

"It's just my asthma," he wheezed out and began fumbling in his jeans pocket for his inhaler. His eyes were still trained on the crowd, who were quietening a little bit, now the stage held roadies instead of wannabe rock stars.

"I liked them, but I think the lead singer is a bit cocky, he cares way too much about his appearance," Sam mused. "He must have flicked his beautiful fringe out of his face at least ten times. He shouldn't have been thinking about his hair, he should have been thinking about his lyrics, then maybe he wouldn't have fluffed that line right at the start," he continued, trying to change the subject.

"Please listen to me for once; it's not your asthma, you can barely walk," Cathy said, worriedly, trying to drag his attention away from the stage and direct it toward his ill health.

"All I have to do is stand and play the guitar; I don't need to walk," he joked lightly, and looked over at her, shooting her a slight smile.

"I'm fine," he reassured her.

Sam stopped talking then and clutched his stomach; it really was killing him, but he didn't want Cathy to know how much.

She could hear his chest rattling even over the din of the crowd beyond the stage.

He pulled out his inhaler and took two hits.

"If it's still bad when we come off, we can go to a hospital and I'll get myself checked out," he wheezed.

"Sam…" Cathy said, but he was looking across at Peter, who had just appeared on the other side of the stage.

Peter was the front man of 'The Coyotes' and Sam was the lead guitarist; they had been best friends since high school, and they were now grinning at each other, mutually nervous but psyched.

The way they always felt and looked before a gig.

Cathy knew at that point her husband's focus was fifteen minutes in the future. He was envisioning walking on stage. On this tour he went on first and played the opening chords to 'Don't stop now."

It was the band's first hit in the US, and the first song to reach number one on the Billboard charts and it was still riding high in the top five.

Cathy knew there was going to be no convincing him. The fact that he'd agreed to go to the hospital after the gig was over was fairly amazing.

She knew how much he hated hospitals.

Fifteen minutes later, she could hear those familiar chords reverberating around the venue. It was a lot smaller than the ones they were used to playing back home in England, and throughout Europe, but the band was getting gradually more popular in the States.

She decided it was only a matter of time before the band saw the inside of a few stadiums.

Cathy watched Sam standing lonesome at the front of the stage as whistles and cheers echoed, almost ear-piercingly, around the building.

She could see he was sweating heavily as the harsh lights hit him.

His short dark hair was spiked up with gel, and he was wearing the tight black designer jeans she'd bought for him in Japan. His arse always looked great in those jeans, she decided.

He was also wearing a black tour shirt, bearing the motif of the support act that was touring America with them. He always did that; always wore his support act's tour shirt.

It was one of many things she loved about him; he would always try and help other people in any small way he could. He often reasoned if his fans thought he liked their support act, they might go out and buy their album. He would also, always name check them half way through the gig, and thank them for opening for them.

The opening chords to 'Don't stop now' chugged out, and the crowd seemed to get louder every time his plectrum hit the guitar strings.

He'd written the song in their bedroom, back in London.

She remembered the first time he'd played it, on the acoustic guitar she'd bought him for Christmas; he'd sung it to her and then revealed he'd wrote it for her.

It had been hers then, but now it belonged to each and everyone else in the sea of people beyond the stage, and it probably meant something different to each one of them.

She'd almost forgotten about his breathing problems, when it happened.

A loud feedback suddenly began to grind out of the amplifiers; making most of the people in the crowd cover their ears.

Sam had stopped playing; he looked across at his wife, standing just off stage.

The stage lights were making his deep green eyes shine unnaturally.

The color in his face was completely gone; his skin was as pale as milk. She could almost hear his wheezing as she watched his chest heave violently up and down.

Then she watched as he hit the floor, and Peter and the drummer Steve, ran on.

Cathy darted on stage; as she pulled out her cell phone and dialed 911, the cheers and whistles in the auditorium turned into shocked gasps.

The grating squeal of Sam Bedford's guitar was still cutting into the air, as he fought desperately to get some oxygen into his lungs.

And the sound of Cathy's voice telling him everything would be all right was the last thing he heard before he passed out.

------------

Chapter 1: House, by snark bait

"Band guy, gimme," I say to Cuddy as I enter her office uninvited.

I let the door crash loudly into the wall behind me; sometimes a man needs to make an entrance, to get his boss's attention in the quickest possible time.

Judging from the look Cuddy shoots me as she glances away from her computer screen, I'd say it did the trick.

Her hand is paused above the computer keyboard whilst she questions me, first with her eyes – then:

"I changed my system password; how could you possibly know about, band guy?" she demands, dangerously, her eyes narrowing slightly as she tries to read me.

I shrug and stop midway between the door and her desk.

"I hear voices, all the time. Sometimes the voices tell me to spread wicked rumors about stuffy hospital administrators. Sometimes the voices tell me about patients I might like to treat," I say, deciding that annoying Cuddy is, quite possibly, my second favorite addiction.

She gives me a look you might give someone just after they ran your favorite pet over.

"I already assigned the case to Dr Roberts, House. Go away, and close the door carefully on your way out," Cuddy replies, making the word 'carefully' sound louder than the rest for some reason.

Then she plays at completely ignoring me, as she starts typing on her computer keyboard.

I wonder how much time in a day we'd both save if we didn't have to do this dance every time I want something from her.

She loves pretending to hate me. It must take a lot of her energy putting up such a convincing act.

"Has Dr Roberts worked out what's wrong with band guy yet?" I say, moving closer to her desk, then tapping the butt of my cane on it to try and get her attention back on me, where it should be.

She looks at the cane unenthusiastically, and then shoots me an oppressive stare, that is supposed to encourage me to stop annoying her. But surely she knows by now, that just makes me want to annoy her more.

"Actually, yes; I think he's going to discharge him tomorrow. So you're not having it, because there is nothing to have. So you can just turn around, limp back out of here and go harass your staff instead of me. I'm busy," Cuddy says, and then waves her hand in a dismissive gesture that usually means she'd like me to leave her office. Wow, is that the best she's got? Her game is weak today.

"And if the inspiration hits you, which I'm ever hopeful it will, treat a few clinic patients on the way," she adds as an afterthought, briefly looking at me, then pretending to read her monitor again.

Okay I'll play lightly for a moment before I go for the jugular, because I suppose this is more entertaining than the clinic.

"Okay, but just so you know, I hear Roberts has a nasty little phet problem. And you've gone and put him in a room with a rock star."

She looks up at me as I look at my wristwatch.

"I can only imagine what sort of depraved things they're getting up to on the second floor. Drugs, parties, wild sex orgies…"

I make a powerful display of thinking about my own words, tilt my head, then smile and back up toward the door.

"Scrap everything I just said, I think I'll go and see how that's working out," I say, nodding my head as I raise my eyebrows.

Cuddy leans back in her chair and sighs lightly. She's becoming bored now, and her boredom will force her to give up soon just to get me out of here.

And I'd really like to steal this case without having to bargain for it with clinic hours.

"Dr Roberts does not have an amphetamine problem, but if you'd like to talk about drug addiction and this is your subtle way of trying to approach the subject, I've got five minutes, we can talk about it," Cuddy says, a smug smile curling her lips.

I fake laugh and smile at her, and then I ease myself back towards her desk again.

"I appreciate the offer, but I think I'm better off talking to my psychiatrist about that sort of stuff. We'll be getting to addiction, when we've completely covered my emotional problems due to being sexually harassed by my boss at work," I say and shake my head, in mock disgust.

She really wants me to leave her alone. She'll give in soon enough. Time to switch hit, and get her with some serious stuff.

"Band guy collapsed on stage, after complaining of a tight chest and difficulty walking. The word on the grapevine is, Roberts thinks it's asthma. If he sends him out of here with that diagnosis, and it's wrong, he could be killing one half of the best rock duo, since John and Paul," I say, seriously. Giving her a solemn look so she knows I actually mean it.

I know she finds it difficult to tell the difference sometimes, and I want to get out of here as much as she wants me gone, so I'll help her along.

Cuddy shakes her head at me, trying to pull off that dismissive school principal shit she thinks she does so well. It's not going to work, because rock stars don't collapse on stage due to asthma attacks.

Fat ten year olds in playgrounds perhaps, but not rock stars.

So therefore, I'm not leaving this room until the case is mine.

"That's why you want the case; because he's in a band," Cuddy says distastefully, and then she sits up and folds her arms. "You can't pick and choose the sick people you want to help, House; now go do your job."

That's what she says to me, as if I'm a stubborn retriever that won't go and fetch the ball she's just thrown.

I stay put; this isn't over yet, because it is not asthma.

"You make a good point Cuddy; rock stars are cool. But you know what's cooler? Rock stars who have symptoms dangerously manifesting as acute asthma, but which in all actuality could be the precursor to a very severe heart attack," I say, narrowing my eyes.

It could be; probably isn't, but that sounds drastic enough to -oh wait -there it is. Her eyes flit to the side in thought. I've got her on the ropes now.

She's thinking, 'Has that superbly inferior Dr Roberts fucked up?' Yes, Cuddy, I'm about 99 percent sure he has.

"I'll bet his white count is through the roof. How about, you pick up the phone and check; if it is, band guy is not just having an asthma attack, he's having system failure, and Roberts will miss it," I say, feigning a guess.

But I know the white count's through the roof, because I got Cameron to call one of his employees before; she mentioned she knew a member of his team.

Spies are cool.

How is it I have an uncanny ability of switching off when people are talking crap, but somehow manage to remember the important stuff?

I must have some sort of bullshit filter, built into my brain.

Cuddy watches me for a few seconds; her facade of annoyance turns into mild doubt and then morphs into ever so slight intrigue as she picks up her phone.

Her hands hit the numbers quickly. I can't help but find it mildly amusing that this woman knows the number to every team on every floor.

You need to get out more, Cuddy.

At the very least, she's thinking I could be wrong and she'd like to gloat and throw me out if I am.

I smile inwardly as she chats to the chick on Dr Roberts's team; I smile openly as she verbally confirms the high white count and gives me an uncomfortable look.

She hangs up the phone. And I have to go for the kill now, whilst the doubt is fresh in her mind.

"If Roberts kicks him out with a painfully inept diagnosis of asthma, and then band guy dies at his next gig, you're going to have a hell of a lot of pissed Coyote fans in here crying and aiming to pop a cap in his cracked out ass," I say.

"Roberts is not on crack, and we're not in downtown LA, we're in a teaching hospital in Princeton. So, could you please try and sound like a doctor. I know it's hard," Cuddy says, in a distractedly stern voice.

She hates it when I'm right, which is funny really; you'd think she'd be used to it by now.

"Well he's acting like he is, with that diagnosis. I'm doing this for you really," I say, with fake sincerity.

"Sure you are," Cuddy says, skeptically, as she frowns at me.

But the worm is turning, I'm waiting for it.

Cuddy leans back in her seat, I narrow my eyes. C'mon Cuddy. If Roberts screws this up, you look bad, and the hospital looks bad.

I know that's what she's thinking.

"Fine, you can have band guy, but I want all of your clinic hours logged and completed by Thursday or he is going straight back to Dr Roberts, " Cuddy says, raising her eyebrows.

She has to say that, to make her think I have to earn it. But we both know that kid isn't going anywhere near Roberts again.

The reality is, she knows I've probably just taken one step in the direction of saving his life.

Roberts may as well be on crack, he's so useless. Why didn't she just give me the case in the first place? She likes seeing me grovel, that's why.

I play along. I nod, then salute. "Scout's honor, boss," I say, and then I get the hell out of her office before she thinks of some other hoops for me to jump through to keep my new case.

I head for the elevator. I need to go to my office, so I can dig out my debut 'Coyotes' album. Chase can get it signed for me, when I send him to do another history.

------------

Chapter 2: Cuddy, by phineyj

I need another cup of coffee. Getting urgent pages at four a.m. is nothing new, but sometimes I feel like I'm getting a bit old for another night of disturbed sleep.

I've been in the office since six; there didn't seem much point going back to bed after coming over here while we admitted…I glance at the file; Sam Bedford. I always get paged when it's a celebrity; the night staff get nervous about getting chewed out for bad press.

No media calls so far though – music journalists aren't known as early risers, and the story obviously hasn't reached the news desks yet. Not that I'll mind when it does; publicity is good for donations and fellowship applications, especially when it concerns young, good looking rock stars.

As long as they're young, good looking, breathing, rock stars, that is.

Roberts was on call last night, and as it presented as a respiratory problem, I've had him running tests on Sam since early this morning.

However, the initial results he's just e-mailed me are confusing. There are cardiac issues as well, and a whole host of seemingly unrelated symptoms including a sky-high white count. I'm guessing Roberts is now out of his depth, because he's suggested we consult House. Clearly he's expecting me to actually do it though. Honestly, it beggars belief, the way everyone here tiptoes round that man.

I decide to go down and take a look at the patient myself.

He is resting but awake when I get there, and his wife is sitting anxiously by his side.

He looks pale and sweaty; his eyes are red-rimmed and he has both arms wrapped around his stomach. He looks very much younger than his 29 years.

"I'm Dr Cuddy; I admitted you this morning," I say, by way of general introduction; he was conscious, just about, but in considerable pain, and I doubt he remembers much of what happened.

"How are you feeling, Mr Bedford?" I ask him, having a quick look at his vitals, while I wait for his response.

"I can breathe a bit easier," he says, softly, "But my stomach still hurts," he glances over at his wife, "And my arms."

The woman – I take a quick look at the chart to remind myself – Cathy, her name is – turns to me, her face the very picture of worry, and asks, "This can't be just asthma, can it? It's never been this bad before."

"I'm going to put our top diagnostician on the case," I tell her, "Dr House; if he can't figure it out, no-one can."

"When will we meet him?" she asks. I try not to look amused, because it would be inappropriate. Anyway, House may just make an exception of his rule of not meeting patients, for the sake of a rock star.

"I'm going to go through all the information with him as soon as I can," I say, "His team will be down to see you both shortly."

"Thank you, Dr Cuddy," says Sam, from the bed, running a hand through his short dark hair, "I appreciate the trouble you're going to, and I'm sure this is nothing, really." Cathy looks unconvinced.

It's odd; I'd never heard of his band before the early hours of this morning, and I know I've never met this guy before I saw him arrive here on a gurney, but somehow he seems slightly familiar.

We talk some more; Cathy asks me what the tests were Dr Roberts' team ran earlier this morning, and I explain, and tell her what the results were, and why the high white count means we need to investigate other factors as well as the asthma. Sam's quiet, but very much present; although he lets the two of us do the talking.

I've met plenty of celebrities in my time – mostly in circumstances they'd rather not recall – and some of them have an aura of famous person about them; others, however, seem completely ordinary and you wouldn't give them a second glance if you met them in the street.

Sam is neither one nor the other; but he does have an intensity about his presence; a way of making you feel like you're the only person in the room with him; his green eyes lock onto you and he pays you complete attention. I can see how effectively that would work on an audience.

And as I leave them and walk briskly back to my office, I suddenly know who he reminds me of.

David.

------

"Band guy, gimme," House says, as he storms into my office without knocking, flinging the door back in his haste. God, he is such a drama queen sometimes.

Oh, this will be fun. Why would I tell him now I was going to give him the case in a few minutes anyway?

I know damn well he hacks into the case management system; I get an alert when he does it; it's probably in my inbox right now. And I don't make my passwords that hard to crack. Not for him, anyway. It's all part of the game. Keeps him on his toes; makes him appreciate the good cases when he gets them.

But for the sake of appearances, I ask him how he knows about 'Band guy'.

I inform him Dr Roberts has the case. Which is true! And then I tell him to go away, knowing that hell will freeze over before that happens.

I watch while he looms over me, considering his next move. I note the sparkle of intrigue in his expression, and I can see the young man that he was when I first met him at Michigan; I was a little afraid of him back then – I'm not now.

I turn back to my computer; I am very busy, actually; Pediatrics failed its Infection Control random check yesterday, and if I don't sort it out ASAP, we'll be in all manner of trouble with the authorities.

And I wait.

Soon enough, he's pressing me for details of the case. I tell him to go away again, and to call in at the clinic on the way. I will never tell him this, because who would give Greg House bargaining chips if they didn't have to, but he's the best clinic doctor I have.

I don't just make him do it for kicks. He can get through the patient load twice as fast as anyone else, when he deigns to turn up, that is, and he's caught some serious problems at an early stage on quite a few occasions. It more than makes up for the odd patient – and employee – who runs out of there in tears.

Oh, he's taken the nuclear option now, i I hear Roberts has a nasty little phet problem. /i Mistake, House, big mistake. I tell him I'm here if he wants to talk about his own drug addiction. Score to me; but he smashes the ball back nicely with his, i I'm better off talking to my psychiatrist about that sort of stuff. /i I very nearly lose it at the idea of him voluntarily going to a shrink, but I manage to keep my poker face. God knows, I've had plenty of practice.

And finally, we're discussing the case. He's obviously given it some thought, and you know, I agree with what he's saying. That was why I was giving it to him in the first place. But I get little enough fun these days, so I toss in one final barb, "That's why you want the case; because he's in a band," and I follow that up with a quick moral lecture about how we don't get to pick our patients; and why not? He's forever telling me what I ought to do.

I call Dr Roberts' office, because he won't have told his staff yet he's passing on the case to House; and they confirm the high white count. I don't really have much more time for this stringing House along, and besides, I want him working on the patient, not sparring with me. I do want him to feel like he's won, though, so I put on a show of reluctance while he lays out the worst case scenario for me.

Finally, grudgingly, I agree he can have the patient, making it conditional on him finishing this week's clinic hours. Which he agrees to – yes! And with that, he's closed the door behind him, presumably off to round his team up for a differential.

I'm smiling at the typical House discussion; gratuitous mention of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll; well, admittedly, perhaps the rock 'n' roll mention was valid in this particular case. All that was missing was a crack about my breasts. I look down at the top I'm wearing today; nope, still there; this case must really be intriguing him. He's like a dog with a bone when he gets an interesting puzzle.

And then I remember the first time I saw his diagnosis skills in action, all those years ago at Michigan. I told him David's history, pretending it was some random patient I had to do a case report on, and straight away he spotted what all the other doctors had missed. He didn't know the 'patient' had been decomposing in a Baltimore graveyard for more than ten years. That night was the first time I ever slept with House, and to this day, I don't think he knows those two events are connected.

_To be continued…_


	2. Chapter 2

Authors' note:

More System Failure,phineyj and snarkbait's angsty rock-the-House saga! It's House/Cuddy but do not fear, there's plenty here for everyone, hopefully. Read, enjoy, and feedback - the more you comment, the quicker we write!

Possible mild spoilers for all episodes which have aired in the US to date...

Chapter 3: House, by snarkbait

I'm almost about to catch up on some much needed sleep. My feet are up on the desk, my head is back, and my arms are comfortably folded in front of me, when an idiot nurse outside the office drops a tray holding a collection of sample pots as she's passing by.

The combined aural assault of plastic clattering, liquid spilling and glass smashing brings me very much back into reality with a jerk.

The nurse, or 'hippo lady' as I'm about to rename her - because my lord, she needs to lay off the Twinkies - stares worriedly in at me; I shoot her a filthy look to let her know I think she's a bumbling hippo, on the off chance she doesn't know this to be fact already.

I pat myself down until I find my Vicodin. I fish them out of my jeans pocket and tap out two pills, dry swallow them, and then wipe a tired hand down my face, stopping to give my chin a good scratch.

Then, I glance at my watch and wonder where the hell Chase is. It's taken him over an hour to get a simple patient history.

Either the celebrity has blinded him with his superior hair conditioning, or he's chatting up one of the nurses on Roberts' reception.

I turn on my PC, aiming to have a quick scan through the patient system before Cuddy changes her password again.

Crap, too late.

I wonder what brilliant and cryptic word we've got this time.

I type in 'partypants' all one word, lower case.

Nope, that's old school, don't think I'll be seeing that one again.

I try all of her sisters' names, with various capitalizations and arrangements. I found them out, purposely pretending to give a crap when we had a tipsy conversation at a fundraiser one time, for this very purpose.

It's served me well before - today? Nada.

Although, I am sort of glad when that turns up nothing, because how cloyingly sentimental would that be?

What about – ha, she hasn't used this one for a while, but every now and then she rotates an old one; bingo.

'David' with a capital D, the rest in lower case.

She probably hasn't had time to think of a better one yet; poor Cuddy, so overworked.

Not got time to take five minutes and excavate the bug from her ass - in case the world grinds to a jerky, shuddering halt.

I wonder who David is?

I'm thinking boyfriend or childhood pet.

But then again, is Cuddy really feeble enough to let a dead family pet hold the key to all of her systematic secrets?

Maybe.

I notice the nurse outside, retreating away after cleaning up the mess she's made. Leaving a hell of a lot quieter than the way she arrived.

I yawn loudly and wonder who the hell David is.

I don't think she's dating anyone at the moment. People who are getting some - regularly - aren't that uptight.

Then there is the simple observation that people who become contentedly coupled up, tend to let themselves go a bit.

Every spare minute she gets, she's playing squash or in the gym.

So, maybe it's an ex-boyfriend? But that's even worse than a dead pet; how pathetic.

I hope it's not, Cuddy; that's so desperate I wouldn't even know where to start with the mocking.

How about ex-girlfriend? Lesbians might like to give each other pet names; maybe Cuddy had a girlfriend called David.

That's a really good thought; I'm coming back to that one, when I'm not in full on hacker mode.

I have a quick scan for any other potential cases, on the slim to no chance whatsoever that band guy is just having a really sucky asthma attack.

But on that very slim chance, I'd need a back up case ready, so not to end up imprisoned in the clinic all week.

I glance at my watch again, out of habit, even though I only just looked at it. It's just gone ten; where the hell is Foreman?

I get up and head into the main office; Cameron is sitting at her desk in the corner, typing studiously away on her laptop. I wonder if it's work related, or if she's doing something as daring and frivolous as checking her personal emails in work time?

Probably work related; stealing hospital time would rack her with far too much guilt. I couldn't give a crap if she was searching for porn.

Actually, that would be really cool.

She shoots me a quick, curious stare, as I enter the room, then eyes her PC again.

Why aren't dumb and dumber here yet? I want to get going on this. The later we start the differential, the more screwed up my calendar gets.

I need to be done in here by eleven so I can get up to Pediatrics to catch General Hospital, swing by here when that finishes to get a patient update, and then go to lunch with Wilson.

Then, I suppose I'll need to go and meet band guy myself, so I can work out exactly what lies he's told Chase.

I reach the coffee machine and fix myself a drink, glancing over at Cameron as I do, just to check she can see I've had to get up, and limp all the way in here to refill my mug, when she could have done it for me, instead of searching for porn.

She's not looking at me.

I should probably lay off the caffeine really; I'm already feeling a bit jittery from having two cans of Red Bull this morning.

I tap my cane impatiently on the floor, and stare at the whiteboard; a mixture of doctors, patients and nurses pass by outside, but none of them happen to be the rest of my team.

I don't like waiting for them when I'm eager to get going on a case, it frustrates me. Foreman must be purposely trying to piss me off, because I paged him at least forty minutes ago.

I head over to the whiteboard, place my coffee on the conference table, and then pick up a black marker.

I'll write up what I already know, then page the wombat, and encourage him to leave the shark story for another day.

And if that doesn't work, I'll have to head down there myself and puppeteer him back here with my cane shoved up his ass.

I start writing.

Difficulty breathing.

The squeak of the pen against the board piques Cameron's interest and she looks over at me.

"What are you doing?" she asks, glancing curiously over the top of her glasses, hands paused mid flutter on the keys of her computer.

What does it look like I'm doing?

"Wrestling alligators," I reply, jadedly.

I'm beat; my sleep patterns have been seriously messed up since Wilson moved in. He may be gone now, but my brain still seems to think it can hear the feminine sound of a hair-dryer at 6am every morning.

I stifle another yawn with the back of my hand, and stare at the board again.

Breathing problems could mean a chest infection, which could suggest something viral.

If guitar boy has a viral infection, singer, drummer and bass boy would be sick too, surely.

I don't think it's viral, although I'll bet we're not even five minutes into the differential before Foreman suggests it is.

I add abdominal pain.

Difficulty breathing combined with stomach pain; could be the warning sign of a heart attack. And a heart attack in a 29-year-old rock star, to me, suggests drugs.

Lots of drugs.

Although I'm pretty sure Cameron will argue it isn't, because she'll want to believe this guy is somehow different, an individual, a law-abiding and compassionate husband. Or some other immature non-logic that encourages her to challenge my less naive take on

reality.

I tap the marker against my chin.

Even a doctor as incompetent as Roberts would probably have figured out this could be the warning symptoms of a heart attack.

Okay, band guy, if you did take something to pick yourself up, odds are you like to bring yourself down too. Most rock stars are control freaks; why should you be any different?

If you did, what was it, pot? No probably something stronger, some sort of barbiturate.

Coke gets the heart racing; barbs slam you into comatose when you want to stop talking fifty five miles an hour about something no one else on the planet wants to hear.

I'll get Cameron to do a tox screen; I suppose I could send her to go do it now, considering the other two have gone AWOL.

I glance over at her; she seems engrossed in what she's doing. Whatever it is, I doubt it's as important as doing this for me.

I almost suggest that she go and take some blood and run some tests, including a tox screen, when the wombat and Dr Bling finally decide to show their faces.

I take a very obvious glance at my watch and shoot Foreman a shitty look.

"Thank you so much for fitting me into your busy schedule; I'm deeply honored," I say moodily, but I'm relieved they're finally here, so we can get on with this.

'What?" he replies defensively, "I went with Chase to get the history."

Christ on a bike, Chase, are you so scared of fucking up nowadays you can't even get a history without Foreman holding your hand whilst you do it?

I hold out my arm and Chase hands me the file.

You need pushing into the deep end of something, to wake you up a bit Blondie; but we'll get to that when we have time.

I pick up the marker again and start writing out the important stuff.

Already have breathing problems, so I'll skip that.

I make a note of the sky high white count, then turn to look at Chase.

"Did he complain of feeling light headed when he got the breathing problems?" I ask, as he sits down next to Foreman at the conference table.

"No, he said it felt like a regular asthma attack, but his breathing is much better now," he replies.

It was a regular asthma attack, when flying pigs with blow-torches fly past my window; I have a quick glance and check.

No airborne pork yet.

"The white count is still through the roof, and the abdominal pain is getting increasingly worse," Foreman says.

Chase places something down on the table and Cameron picks it up, clearly deciding that tending to the maintenance of her puppy rescue website is slightly less interesting, now we have the history.

She turns over the CD I asked Chase to get signed, and raises an eyebrow.

"Couldn't you have waited to go autograph hunting until we cured him?" she says, because she's so goddamn above that sort of thing.

"Yeah, I could have; House on the other hand," Chase, says, looking at me, raising his eyebrows and then letting his words trail off.

Stupid little wombat, now she's giving me the look, ooh I get a head tilt and the placing of hands on hips.

Scary, I'm getting chills; stop.

"He might croak before we cure him; it makes sense to me to get his John Hancock on the CD, before he dies, rather than after, I haven't got that curing death thing down, just yet."

She gives me a mildly outraged look, but her outraged looks have become softer than those of a year ago.

"If the breathing problems are just asthma, the abdominal pain could be something as simple as an ulcer," Cameron says, helpfully.

Like no one else in the room went to medical school.

"Has the breathing problem gone completely?" I ask Chase.

"It seems that way," he replies.

"He been sucking on his inhaler every five seconds?" I ask, raising my eyebrows, and glancing from Chase to Foreman.

"No, they left it at the concert by accident; he asked for another though," Chase replies.

"Did you give him one?" I ask.

"Not yet," Foreman replies. What is this, why are they finishing each other's sentences?

I'm going to have to split them up, if they insist on becoming one bland, interchangeable diagnostician, instead of the separate neurologist and intensivist I hired.

"Good; don't give him one," I say and turn back to the board.

"Don't give an asthma sufferer his inhaler, genius," Cameron says, in a dubiously sarcastic tone.

I fake smile and roll my eyes. "I'm not a genius, silly. It just seems that way because you three are almost always wrong, whereas I'm normally right."

Cameron shakes her head, and sits down, but refrains from biting back, as I pass her the history.

"It's not asthma. Granted, he has asthma and sometimes it affects his breathing, but the problem at the concert wasn't his asthma," I say eyeing the whiteboard again.

"Why not?" Foreman says.

"Because it went away, therefore it's a symptom of something else and so is the stomach pain," I reply.

Wait for it.

"It could be a chest infection; how about something viral?" Foreman says, glancing at Chase and Cameron for support.

"Any of his band mates sick?" I ask. I hate days when this lot are so mind numbingly predictable.

"No; according to his wife, the other members of the band are fine," Chase informs me.

Of course they are.

"Then it's probably not a virus," I reply. "What starts with breathing difficulty and belly pain?"

I look at the history again, over Cameron's shoulder and wonder why I never knew Chase was dyslexic before now. Only a dyslexic person could have written these notes. This is bad, even for a doctor.

I move over to the board then, and add what I can only assume to be, 'constipation' and 'joint pain' to the board.

"Followed by these symptoms, after the breathing became normal again?"

'He was in Bolivia three weeks ago, could easily have picked up an infection out there," Cameron says, as she's scanning the history.

"Yeah, he mentioned he and his wife took a short break, before moving on to tour America," Chase says.

"To Bolivia," I say distastefully. Who goes to Bolivia for a short break?

"He could have picked up a parasite, some sort of worm infestation maybe?" Foreman says.

"Looks like he saw more than he bargained for," Cameron says in that enigmatic tone she likes to use to make herself sound smarter sometimes. "He was involved in a bus crash," she finishes, and then glances at me.

Chase shakes his head dismissively.

"He said it was a minor accident; a few cuts and bruises. They didn't even go to a hospital," Chase says, playing it down. That probably means band guy played it down to him.

Could be something in that; can't tell until I speak to him myself.

"Who would? They were in Bolivia, I don't blame them," I say.

"He had a simple asthma attack, and the rest of the symptoms can easily be explained by an infection from something he picked up in Bolivia, probably a parasite of some sort, more than likely a worm," Foreman says, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair. "Which leads me to ask, why the hell are we on this case? If this were any regular guy, you wouldn't go near him. You just want to treat him because he's in a band," he finishes smugly.

"Of course. I can see it now. Rock star collapses at gig; brilliant Princeton diagnostician saves the new face of rock and roll. How else am I going to get in Rolling Stone?" I say, and then shake my head mildly.

"If the symptoms are connected, this could also be his body's way of saying he's about to have a heart attack," Chase says. Finally something an intensivist should say.

"Heart attack in a 29 year old is possible, but acute asthma attack in an asthma sufferer is way more likely," Cameron replies; she's really in a perky smack-down mood today.

"True," I say, dragging the word out, and then tilting my head and looking past her. "Unless that 29 year old did copious amounts of drugs, before they went on stage, then I'd say heart failure is way more likely," I finish, and stare at her.

And that red rag is flapping; I'm surprised she doesn't hoof the floor before saying:

"Just because he's in a band, doesn't mean he's on drugs."

I laugh quickly, because she really is hilariously predictable sometimes.

"Did you hear the words that just came out of your mouth? Rock stars take coke, super models shoot up heroin, and politicians sleep with their secretaries, because they can, so

they do, that's the whole point. That's why the stereotypes exist."

"Judgmental much?" she says, shaking her head and folding her arms across her chest.

"You say judgmental, I say logical deduction, but let's let science do the talking, because I can feel an ethics lecture coming on, and I have a thing, later, don't want to miss it."

It's obvious we need to do a collection of tests. The symptoms are too vague to pin down

"Cameron, go do a blood test; have a look for Foreman's parasites; Chase can follow that with an endoscopy to confirm or deny your theory of an ulcer, and throw in an electrocardiogram, to rule out heart failure," I instruct them.

Go minions, be free.

Cameron pushes herself away from the desk and gets up.

"And if you're not too bogged down with all that, humor me and throw in a tox screen for my over-reaching theory of drugs."

'What about me?" Foreman asks.

"You check out his place," I reply.

Foreman frowns at me. "He's British; his place is thousands of miles away; how can I check out his place?"

"I know I'm not exactly down with the kids like you," I say and throw him a gang sign. "But they still have tour buses, don't they?"

Foreman nods, and the kids leave the room.

That was quick; I may even have time to annoy Wilson for five minutes before watching my show.

Chapter 4: Wilson, by snarkbait

It's mid-morning, and I'm having a conversation with Trisha, a patient of mine, about some of the unpleasant side effects she may experience when she starts her chemotherapy next week.

It probably won't cure her; the cancer is very advanced. She knows this, but she's optimistic.

I feel guilty when I realize my full attention is not where it should be.

She is explaining how supportive her family has been, and how they've rallied around to make sure someone is with her 24/7.

I can't help but start thinking about some of my other patients; the ones who aren't as fortunate.

The ones who don't have anyone. Cancer isn't picky; it affects the popular and the lonely, equally.

This line of thought leads me to one person in particular.

And before I know it, a small part of me is in Florence with Grace.

I can only imagine how lovely it must be there at this time of year. I can almost see the purple clouds in the sky as the sun sets on one of the most beautiful places in the world.

I went with my parents, when I was a teenager. I couldn't appreciate its magnificence at that age, except maybe the stunning olive-skinned women, but the mysterious beauty of the place has always stayed with me.

I've always wanted to go back.

I told her I wished I could have gone with her, and I meant it. But we both knew Florence was an ending, in many ways.

Maybe I'll go again one day, and take the memory of what could have been between us and lay it to rest there.

I don't want to think about her, but she's been on my mind a lot since she left to go to Italy.

It's not just the connection that we had that has been hard to stop thinking about.

It's also the risk I took, and the fact that House knows – everything.

I wasn't aiming to tell anyone, ever.

Least of all him.

It's not that I don't trust him; it's that I know he can't help himself sometimes.

The speech for Vogler last year is the perfect example of that.

All he had to do was give one lousy speech; it would have hurt no one, but he couldn't do it.

I'm more worried about it now than I was when I was living with her. It's like I'm waiting for him to say something.

Part of me is unsure what the hell I thought I was playing at.

It wasn't love, not even close, and it didn't happen because of some vampire-like thirst on my part to be needed, despite House's deeply warped take on things.

We both wanted somebody to go home to; we needed each other.

That part, I don't feel bad about. I'm only human.

It was risky, but I don't regret it.

Granted, she probably needed me more than I needed her, but who measures that sort of thing? People like House, and what would he know?

He's the loneliest person I've ever met.

We both got something out of it; she had someone to comfort her through the bad days and at the very least, her illness helped me to put my own problems into perspective.

Relationships don't always have to be about love, or sex. Sometimes it can be as simple as not wanting to be alone.

If House is too detached and cynical to see that, it really is his loss.

He could do with someone to share the ins and outs of his shitty days, seeing as he has so many of them.

Trisha is still talking, and I feel bad, because I have no idea what she's just said.

I try and apply myself, fully and completely, to what she is saying, when something catches my eye outside.

Great, think of the Devil and he shall appear.

Hitching his bum leg over the wall on the balcony, then limping with purpose toward the door.

I shake my head and raise my eyebrows to try and stop him from - too late.

He raps loudly on the glass, and makes my patient jump out of her skin.

"I'm terribly sorry," I apologize, as she turns around to face House, who stares in at me, yanks his head in a 'come hither' jerk, then backs off again.

He really needs to stop doing this, but I know if I vocalize my unhappiness at his interruptions, he'll only do it more, to annoy me when he's bored.

I get up and excuse myself.

"This won't take long," I add, truthfully.

I slide the door open, step outside, and make sure it's shut again before I say "What?" in a hostile tone.

"You looked bored; thought I'd come cheer you up," he replies.

I breathe out loudly, and shake my head, mildly angered at his rudeness.

"Those people you see hanging out in my office from time to time are called patients. And chances are, if I haven't just told them they have cancer, I'm about to, so could you wait until I'm alone in the future – please?" I say, and place my hand on the door.

He squints his eyes and looks at me as if I'm his whiteboard.

"Who's David?" he says, tone light, as if he hasn't listened to a word I just said.

I close my eyes briefly and shake my head again before placing my hands firmly on my hips.

"I think there are probably a few million; you might need to narrow it down for me," I reply.

"The David Cuddy uses as a password for her system," he says and leans on the wall, looking out over the hospital grounds.

"You've been hacking into her files again?" I question wearily. "Stop it; it's none of your business."

"Gee, you're a ray of sunshine today," he says, giving me a quick glance. "Debbie from Accounting is none of your business, yet you seem to know an awful lot about her. Even though she has a boyfriend," he continues.

I wish he'd stop harping on about Debbie; she's old news, and her boyfriend dumped her a month ago, so even if I was interested - which I'm not - I wouldn't be doing anything wrong.

"I have no idea who David is; why do you care?" I say.

"He's an anomaly. And anomalies interest me. He's the only other real person Cuddy uses as a password. There has got to be a reason," House muses.

"I have no idea who he is, but chances are, there is a reason we've never heard of him; it's called privacy. Leave it alone."

"I'm taking an interest; I'm curious about the facets of my friend's life," House says, defensively.

What a crock of shit.

"No, you're sticking your nose somewhere it doesn't belong," I counter. "Don't you have a case to obsess about instead; at least that's productive?"

"Yeah; heard of The Coyotes?"

I shake my head. I have no idea if that's a sports team, band or – something else entirely.

"The coke head lead guitarist did a face plant at a concert last night; the kids are off running the tests, so I've got time to kill," he informs me, lazily.

"Well I haven't, and neither does Trisha, my patient."

"You're in a meeting with Cuddy later, aren't you?"

"How do you know about that?"

"It's in your calendar; your public one, before you give me another privacy lecture."

"Oh, yeah, so?"

"So, find out who David is," House, suggests, turning to look at me.

I tilt my head and turn to leave. I'm really not in the mood for House's obsessions today.

"How the hell," I begin. But he's already giving me his gnomic stare. "Find out yourself," I say, and pull open the door.

------

A few hours later, I'm talking to Cuddy about hiring a new doctor on my team.

I'm sitting on the sofa in her office, and she's behind her desk.

She's noticeably quieter than usual, like she's here, but some of the lights aren't on.

She knows what sort of hire I'm looking for, and offers to sit in if I need her to, but she has a look in her eyes as though a tiny part of her mind is focused, not only on something else, but somewhere completely out of the building.

Which is strange, for Cuddy.

Her phone rings, and she excuses herself quickly as she scoops it up.

"Dr Cuddy," she says, by way of an answer.

"He's stable and comfortable – I'm afraid that's all I can tell you right now," she says and replaces the phone then looks at me.

"Sorry about that. That's got to be the fifth phone call I've had in the past hour concerning our famous patient."

"The guitarist," I say; she nods.

"House's new patient?"

She nods again.

And then I know she isn't quite herself, when House's name doesn't draw the string of abuse and complaints it usually does.

In fact the last time I remember her being this quiet and withdrawn was when her handyman fell from her roof.

"Is everything okay?" I ask.

I probably shouldn't, because even if she isn't, odds are she won't talk to me about it. I'm too close to House to confide in.

We often discuss him, and she knows what we talk about stays between us. But she never reveals very much about herself.

She's probably all too aware that any weakness she shows is heavy ammunition for someone like House.

I find that sad; for such a brilliant doctor, it's amazing how easily House can bring the worst out of people.

"I'm fine," she says, brushing away the idea that she could possibly be anything less than completely calm and in control whilst she's sat at her desk, being the stoical dean of medicine.

Like that somehow makes her impervious to human emotion.

She's not all right, but I've worked for her long enough to know pushing her is a bad idea.

I wonder if I should give her a heads up on House's newest obsession.

If she's seeing someone she doesn't want people to know about, she has the right to a little privacy, even if House can't get his mind around that.

But then, they tit-for-tat about everything, I should probably stay well away from it.

"I can sit in with you, Monday," she says, getting our conversation going again.

"Okay; I don't think I can make the morning, but I can clear my calendar for the afternoon," I reply.

She nods her head.

"The afternoon is better, actually. How many applications have you had so far?" she asks, distantly.

"About fifteen. Five of those are below standard though; the closing date is tomorrow, so it shouldn't be any more than ten or so interviews. I've got my eye on a couple anyway; some are more impressive than others," I inform her.

"Sounds like you've got it all covered then," she says, in an almost bored tone.

I nod, then reach over and take a sip of my coffee.

She's still not entirely present in this conversation. It seems the last thing she needs is House digging around in her private life today.

I'm going to give her the heads up; I'll probably regret it.

"This is probably not my place to say, but," I clear my throat, "House has got wind of something."

How do I do this, without dropping him completely in it?

"I just thought I should warn you; he's on a mission to find out who David is," I say.

I wait for a reaction.

Okay, she doesn't seem to care – oh, hang on.

She sits up, and her posture becomes rigid.

"I don't know anyone called David," she mutters, far too aggressively to be true.

And then she shakes her head, and she gets a look on her face very similar to the one she gets when House has done something completely outrageous and dangerous.

Her eyes are at complete odds with what she's saying.

Crap, why did I mention it?

"Are we done?" she says snappily

"Yeah," I say, and then get up.

"Thanks for offering to sit in on the interviews," I reply, but she's completely somewhere else by the time I'm at the door.

I don't know what information House thinks he's stumbled across, but I have a feeling he needs to be very careful.

Chapter 5: Cuddy, by phineyj

Apart from a brief meeting with Wilson, I spend most of the day talking to journalists. The first call is the editor from the local paper. I play tennis with him now and again, and I must have made the mistake of giving my direct line at some point. I gather he's a fan of The Coyotes, because normally he's only interested in writing about PPTH if we're being sued.

I confirm that we are treating Sam Bedford, give him a bland statement about the musician's symptoms and tell him we'll be issuing an update later today. When I hang up on him, I summon Keira from PR to my office and ask her to bring a list of any other people who want to talk to me. It's quite a long list: British and American papers, the BBC, plus a rabble of gossip mags and music sites, and it takes us half an hour or so to whittle them down to an order of priority.

I write her a prepared statement to email to most of them, and then call the ones she thinks I should talk to. It makes a change from the boring interviews I do with the trade press. I think it'll be the first time I get my name in Rolling Stone, even if it's just the website. I make sure to mention House in that one.

I'm talking to some British publication called NME, when House walks back in and starts fiddling with the papers on my desk in an annoying fashion. I finish the call – I can hardly understand the guy's accent anyway – and I check my watch; it's twenty past four. I reckon House is shirking the end of his clinic duty and is now on his way to annoy Wilson.

"Mine; paws off," I tell him, taking the list of outstanding legal cases from his large hand, "You're going to be in Rolling Stone," I inform him and he can't quite conceal a smile.

"I'd better not stuff this one up, then," he says, "I'm thinking of developing a specialty as doctor to the stars."

"How's the case?" I ask him.

"Curiouser and curiouser," he replies, leaning more of his weight on his cane; I nod toward the chair he's standing besides, but he shakes his head – he must be in a real hurry to bug Wilson.

"I had Cameron test for parasites," he says, "Zilch. Despite his suspect taste in holiday destinations, he appears to be clean. I thought we'd better rule out ulcers, so I had Chase do an endoscopy, which was also clean. An electrocardiogram showed no heart failure, despite the fact his cardiac symptoms are getting worse, and Dr Cameron's usual touching faith in the patient's probity has unfortunately been backed up with a pristine tox screen. She's going to be unbearable."

I digest this information.

"So he's not on drugs?" I ask.

"If he's not on drugs, I'm Paul McCartney," says House, grimacing, although whether at the tox screen results, or the thought of being responsible for the former Beatle's recent musical output, I'm not quite sure.

"But nothing that you can identify?" I confirm.

"Just means it's something weird, and if Foreman can't find freaky shit in a tour bus, I've definitely underestimated him," House says, grinning, then looks at his watch, and heads off in the direction of Wilson's office, not bothering to close the door behind him.

I decide I should talk to Sam again. I tell myself that if his condition really is drug-related, I'd better know, in case the press get on our case about it. But in my heart of hearts I know I really want to find out if I imagined that resemblance I thought I saw earlier. Before this morning, I hadn't even thought about David in a long time. I try to recall when the last time was, and I decide it must have been his birthday, because we always have to tiptoe around my mother.

Realizing it's been all that time since I've even thought of him makes me feel briefly guilty, because twenty years or so ago, I couldn't even imagine a time when the pain would have lessened to the point where I would actually forget him for months at a time. I suddenly panic that I can't remember what he looked like, and scrabble in the bottom drawer of my locked filing cabinet for the photo album. And how sad is it that my most important personal effects are at work, not at home, I muse, as I flip through the time-darkened plastic covered sheets.

------

I am in the kitchen of the house where I grew up. Everything is familiar; the photographs in their neat line on the oak dresser; my mother's yellow cotton apron hanging behind the door; the collection of shoes of various sizes lined up beside the worktop.

Ruth and Rachel are watching cartoons in the living room, and I can tell from the shrieks and giggles that they are playing their normal game of trying to push each other off the couch. Upstairs, Jenny is singing tonelessly to herself in the bath. It's gone seven o'clock; I ought to try to get her to go to bed soon.

David is standing by the back door, his expression angry. His brand new Fender Stratocaster – a present for his sixteenth birthday – is slung round his neck, and he's wearing his Queen t-shirt, the one he used to practically live in.

The remnants of dinner are on the table, and I ought to clear them up soon. My mother hates it when we leave dirty dishes lying around. David didn't eat anything; and I know he threw up this afternoon. He's flushed, and I want to ask him if he thinks he has a temperature, but I reckon he'll just scoff at me.

I'm holding the keys to my father's car. We're not supposed to know where he hides them, but an empty margarine tub in the fridge isn't the stealthiest place in a family of seven.

"Lisa, I'm going, and that's final. I'm not arguing about it," David says, looking determined.

I don't want to argue with him. I never do. But I'm remembering my mother's words to me, before they left this morning; she said "I'm counting on you, Lisa. David thinks he's in charge, but it's up to you to keep them all in line."

"Give those to me," he says, quietly, holding out his hand for the keys.

I shake my head, trying to control the trembling in my hands, "Mom said-"

"Oh, you are such a good little girl," he replies, his tone dripping with sarcasm, and this is so unlike my gentle brother, that I am shocked. "Mom's not here," he continues, "Give me those."

I take a step backwards. He lifts the guitar from around his neck, wincing slightly as the base drags across his stomach, and props it carefully against a chair. He moves around the table toward me. I think about making a run for it, and the thought must show in my eyes, because he dodges right, grabs my arm, and twists my hand until he has the keys. He shoves them in his pocket, picks the guitar back up off the table, and he's out of the door before I can even think of what I should do next.

And as I listen to the sound of him driving away, all I can think is that I've let my mother down.

------

When I get to Sam's room, he's lying down in bed, and Cameron is taking some blood from his arm. He doesn't look so great, even compared to how he looked earlier. He's the color of chalk and he's clutching at his stomach like it would fall off if he released his grip.

"Dr Cameron, do we need some more pain relief in here?" I ask her. She checks the display on the morphine drip, and looks over at Sam.

"Is the pain getting worse?" she asks, looking charmingly, genuinely concerned, and I know it is genuine. It was the main reason I was so pleased when House hired her. I figured his patients needed all the sympathy they could get.

"Yeah," he says shortly. She increases the dose a little, and looks worried; as well she might, because the last thing we want is to depress his respiration any more.

"I'm going to find House," she says, giving me a troubled glance.

"Try Wilson's office," I suggest.

"Dr Cameron?" Sam asks, weakly, "Would you find Cathy for me, please? She went downstairs to make some calls."

Cameron nods her head briskly, and scampers from the room, her dark ponytail flying out behind her.

"Ask me a question," Sam says, suddenly, "Anything. Take my mind off this stomach ache."

"When did you decide you were going to be a musician?" I ask him, genuinely interested. He's not how I imagined a rock star would be, at all.

"I knew when I first picked up a guitar," he says, and counters with, "When did you know you were going to be a doctor?"

"When I was twelve," I tell him. It's what I tell everyone. It's true. He doesn't say any more, just watches me with his cool green stare. The room is quiet and dim; Cameron must have pulled the blinds across earlier; I doubt the others would have thought of it. The cardiac monitor bleeps away to itself, and footsteps approach, pass and disappear into the distance in the corridor outside.

And for some reason, I tell Sam something no-one at PPTH knows.

"My brother was sick, really sick and my parents were out of town. I had to take him to the ER. There was this one doctor, a woman; she seemed pretty old to me, but she was probably only in her thirties. It was just like it is in any hospital; people rushing about all the time, no-one with any space in their schedule to explain things, especially to hysterical twelve year old girls. Anyway, she took the time to sit down with me and explain what was going on."

"And did your brother–" he starts to say, and trails off, falling back against the pillows, a line of drool coming from his mouth. The cardiac monitor starts to show arrhythmia, and a rattling sound comes from his chest as he struggles to breathe.

"Nurse!" I shout, dropping the bed flat and grabbing a breathing mask, "I need some help in here!"

_To be continued… _


	3. Chapter 3

OK, here's the latest in my and snarkbait's fic System Failure. This part is rated R, and it's House/Cuddy.

Possible mild spoilers for all episodes that have aired in the US to date, but we're choosing to ignore the Cuddy storyline from the last couple of eps because it doesn't fit!

Oh, and we've done as much medical research as we can, especially snarkbait, who says she's been knee-deep in medical textbooks all week, but we're not medics so hopefully it all came out OK ! Don't try any of this at home...

Please comment if you read; feedback makes us happy!

u Chapter 6: Foreman, by snarkbait /u 

"He doesn't take drugs," the singer assures me.

I don't believe him.

I don't know if that's because working for House has made me as cynical as him, or because this guy looks like he's just smoked half a pound of weed.

Those documentaries you see on the TV; the ones which take you inside rock star tour buses.

That is not what this place looks like.

It's a mess; beer cans all over the floor, unwashed and un-ironed clothes everywhere.

And it smells like four grown men have been living in here over the past few weeks.

I gaze at the bong sitting in front of the guy, and raise an eyebrow.

'That's for Dennis; I don't class Dennis as drugs," he says.

"What's Dennis?" I ask.

He looks wasted. His eyes slide to the side in thought and his mouth falls open; eventually he answers. I can tell he's having a hard time focusing on me.

"It's what you yanks call pot," he says, and then lets out a rattling cough.

I figured, but you have to check.

"So he smokes pot, which means he does do drugs," I reply.

The guy shakes his head. "You're wrong, mate. I smoke pot; Sam can't, because of his asthma. He won't let us smoke it in here half the time in case it sets him off. And his wife doesn't approve, either," he informs me.

I sense some negativity toward Cathy straight away.

I tap a can away from my foot as I reach over and have a proper look at the bong.

It looks well used. I give it a sniff; smells like pot. I don't think it's used for anything else.

I place it back down in front of the guy.

"You want me to set one up, mate?" the singer says, grinning.

"I think I'll pass, thanks," I return.

"Suit yourself," he replies.

"Who else was in the crash, in Bolivia?" I ask him.

"No one; Sam and Cathy did that alone. The rest of us went to Hawaii. Who wants to go to fucking Bolivia?" he says distastefully, shaking his head.

"Sam used to party, you know, with the band. Now he's married, it's all about the music, and the rainforests," he giggles lightly. "Thinks he's fucking Sting or something, ever since he met Cathy."

"Don't you like Cathy?" I ask.

"Sure I like her; she's nice enough. She's just turned my best mate into a preppy little shit, that's all, but it's half his fault for being so easily pussy whipped, so I can't blame her completely."

"Maybe he loves her?" I suggest.

The guy laughs, like I cracked a joke.

"Yeah, maybe he does, but Sam's loved a lot of girls since we started this thing; he just never married any of them before."

I nod. Arguing about the guy's best friend is going to serve no medical purpose.

"Did Sam use to take drugs, before he met Cathy?" I ask.

"He did E, now and again, but nothing else. Sam's thing was always beer. When he had his drinking hat on, he could drink us all under the table," he says, proudly.

"You say, 'had always been'; he doesn't drink any more?" I reply.

I really would like to get the hell out of here now; it reeks.

He gets a sheepish look on his face.

"Sam, he's a nice guy, but once he starts drinking he can't stop, and once he's had too much, he can get a bit violent."

"Oh, so she stopped him from drinking," I say; sounds like the right course of action if you can't handle your liquor.

He nods.

"She saw him in a hell of a state one night," the guy laughs; he seems genuinely tickled by the memory.

"He kicked off on Danny, one of the roadies," he laughs some more "Danny shit himself, but Cathy saw him, she was – scared. She said if she saw him like that again, she would leave him. I guess he believed her," he says. He seems unconvinced of Cathy's threat.

"You don't think she'd leave him?" I ask.

"He's a rock star; what bitch leaves a rock star? Of course she wouldn't," he replies.

Gee, that's not cynical; House would love this guy.

He leans forward, and lights his bong, lighting the pot in the bottom then tugging on the pipe with his lips until he's coughing out a lungful of thick grey smoke.

"Did they seem okay, when they got back from Bolivia; any complaints of a poorly tummy, of anything?" I ask.

"Sam had tummy pain before he went to Bolivia; he practically stopped eating. She probably told him he looked fat, and now he's gone fuckin' anorexic or something," the guy says, then takes a hit from his bong again.

"How long has he been off his food, then?" I ask; I really need to get out of here, before the smell of that pot clings to my clothes.

Too much fuel for House's fire, if he smells it on me.

"Almost two months; said he felt sick when he ate. He's a girly little fucker sometimes, he likes to look good, and it's hard looking good all the time when you're in the public eye. I thought he was just trying to trim down."

"Okay, well I should probably get back now. Thanks for letting me look around," I finish, politely.

I'm almost at the door; almost outside in the fresh air, when he says.

"Is he gonna be alright like?"

I turn around; the guy finally looks like he cares, like his best friend is laid up in a hospital ward.

"I don't know; we need to know what's causing the stomach pain. But there are still a lot of tests we have to run. You should probably go see him,"

The guy nods, but I can tell he won't.

He must really hate his friend's wife.

u Chapter 7: House, by snarkbait /u 

I'm watching TV in the oncology lounge, when I receive a page from Cameron, letting me know our patient has just crashed.

The tests we had back earlier ruled out ulcer and heart attack, so this is obviously something new.

One phone call later and I consider myself fully informed.

And I'm not happy.

Cuddy was the one who stabilized the Coyote.

Which leads me to a very important question; why the hell was Cuddy with my patient?

I abandon my show, and head up to the office. Cameron, Chase and Foreman are standing waiting for me when I arrive.

"Update," I say, briskly.

I find a short delivery from me usually encourages the information I need from them, without the bells and whistles of bullshit they usually dress their words with.

"Sam's condition is getting much worse. He passed out again when Cuddy was…"

"When Cuddy was what? What was she doing there?" I snap, butting in on what Cameron is saying.

I don't like or want Cuddy near my patients. She's like a bad luck charm whenever she goes near one.

"I don't know why Dr Cuddy was there; taking an interest in the famous patient she's been fielding calls about, perhaps," Cameron suggests sternly, and I back down.

That's probably true. But I still don't like it.

Cameron is probably still on a high, because she was right about the drugs.

This also displeases me greatly, but it only means Cameron one, me ten thousand in the grand scheme of things, so I'm not going to let it worry me too much.

"Sam is stable, but we need to find out what's going on in there soon," she says, toning down the gloat she's been riding on from his angelic tox screen; obviously she's just remembered there is a sick, hot, rock star that needs to be fixed.

"I've also just got the parasite tests back; they reveal nothing conclusive," she says, aiming to hand me the results.

I ignore her gesture, and head to the coffee machine to make myself a drink. It tastes like cold mud, but I need a caffeine hit.

"Maybe he's going into cardiogenic shock," Chase suggests, wildly.

I turn and focus a displeased look on him for that effort. Luckily, Foreman seems to be getting as bored as me and steps in before I tear Chase a new one.

"Primarily caused by failure of the heart; you said yourself earlier that the echocardiogram revealed no heart problems," Foreman raises his eyebrows and fixes Chase with a stern stare.

This is so much easier when I can sit back and let them do all the work.

"I did a serum enzyme test while I was waiting for the parasite results to come back; it's normal. It's definitely not his heart," says Cameron.

"A normal serum enzyme test would also suggest this isn't an infection," Foreman adds.

Undeterred by his previously stupid statement, Chase has another stab at making a hash of the diagnosis.

"What if he picked up a minor injury in the crash in Bolivia that he never got treated; pericardial fluid could have been leaking into the heart…" he begins.

"It's not his heart," I snap, and move towards the whiteboard.

Foreman picks up Chase's echocardiogram result and looks at it.

"There is no evidence here of fluid around the heart. Size, shape and motion of the heart is normal," he comments.

"Okay; what if the injury was chest based, fluid could be leaking into his lungs, causing his breathing problems, and his body would be starved of oxygen, causing all sorts of damage," Chase counters.

"He isn't hypoxic, and that wouldn't explain the increasingly worsening stomach pain," Cameron tells Chase.

Who finally seems to give up.

"He is a little anemic, though," Cameron adds, turning to me.

"He a veggie?" I ask.

Cameron shrugs.

"Find out," I say, and then glare at Chase. "That should be on the patient history," I tell him.

We need to find out what's going on inside Sam's gut; anemia is the least of his problems, unless it's connected to everything else.

I add it to the board.

"His band mate mentioned that he was off his food before the trip to Bolivia, that could mean whatever has been causing the stomach pain has been around a lot longer than what we first thought," Foreman says.

"True, it could also mean he's in a rock band, and he's not eating, because I hear that's all the rage when you're swimming in famous circles," I suggest.

Foreman folds his arms and gives me one of his stern looks. Ooh that's a new one; I don't think I've seen it before. He must have been practicing that one in the mirror.

I roll my eyes, but add 'lack of appetite' to the board anyway - it could be connected.

"Peritonitis would cause severe lower abdominal discomfort," I suggest, even though it wouldn't account for all of the symptoms.

"He doesn't have any swelling around his abdomen," Chase counters stoutly.

Kiss my ass Chase; you've been throwing out a line of crap since I came in here.

"But he does have a very tender stomach, or did I just imagine that symptom? We need a laparoscopy," I return.

Chase places his hands on his hips and then tips his chin upwards.

"What if he got cholera or dysentery while he was out in Bolivia; he could have gastroenteritis; that would give his stomach hell," Chase suggests.

"If he had cholera or dysentery, he'd have diarrhoea coming out of his ears, not constipation," I return.

"Not if there was a blockage," Chase replies. "But what there would be is intense abdominal pain."

He says it arrogantly enough to know he could be right. It's true, and way more likely than peritonitis. Now I know why I keep the little shit around.

"Throw in a liver biopsy then, whilst you're poking around," I say dismissively.

"The guy at the bus also mentioned Sam used to drink quite heavily; it seems unlikely in a patient so young, but if the problem was severe and he's still drinking, despite saying he's not, he could have cirrhosis of the liver," Foreman says.

Obviously his memory has been jarred by the mention of the biopsy.

"The liver biopsy will tell us if he's still drinking," I'm about to chew Foreman out for not mentioning this earlier when, lo and behold, Cuddy enters the room.

"What's going on," she demands.

That's neither a question nor a statement, so she's not having a polite answer.

"Don't worry," I say dramatically. "No one's having any fun, so you don't have to come and piss on any bonfires. I'll let you know if Cameron cracks a smile though," I say.

Cameron and Cuddy exchange a mutual 'House is such an ass' look.

It's very girl power. I'm surprised one of them doesn't whip a hand from side to side and say 'Ignore him, girlfriend.' And then click their fingers.

"The kid crashed down there, and he's in a bad way. Now I want to know what your thoughts are," Cuddy says, sternly.

She just loves playing school principal.

"I want to know why you want to know," I reply, the tone of my voice dripping with curiosity.

I also want her to know that I'm on to something, to put her on the back foot.

"Because this is my hospital, and I'm getting twenty calls an hour, enquiring about Sam's condition," Cuddy replies, but there is something in her eyes that is warning me to back off a little.

Red rag to a bull, Cuddy, you idiot.

And why is she suddenly unable to lie? That was a shitty lie.

For some reason this all leads me to wonder who David is again. I make sure I don't divert my eyes from her until she looks away first.

"This could also be multiple system failure; we should do an HIV test," Chase suggests.

"The guy at the tour bus did mention Sam was friendly with lots of different ladies before he married," Foreman confirms.

"Chances are he could have had unsafe sex," Cameron adds, "I'll run the test."

"A rock star having unsafe sex; now who's being judgmental?" I offer, sarcastically.

"And you're going to need a signed consent for an HIV test; good luck with that one when you run it by his wife," I add.

"The position of his stomach pain suggests acute appendicitis; you should do a CT scan," Cuddy says suddenly.

"Cuddy; doctor stuff going on here. You do the PR, I'll do the medicine," I reply, making it sound as bitchy as possible.

She doesn't bite back. She is up to something.

Everyone in the room looks at me, and I glance at the whiteboard.

"Do the HIV test, the biopsy, and the laparoscopy to rule out peritonitis," I order them.

"And then do a CT scan," Cuddy says. The kids look from me to her; I glance away and eventually nod slightly.

I was going to suggest it anyway.

I look at the board and narrow my eyes.

"Hey Chase; regarding the Coyote's constipation," I say and turn to look at him, as he's preparing to escape from the room, fairly unscathed.

"If you're right, and there is a blockage, he's going to need an enema when you've finished with those other tests," I say and flash Chase a quick smile.

Chase's stare turns into a glare very quickly, but he holds his tongue and leaves the room.

I wait a few minutes, and then leave too.

I really need to speak to band guy now.

u Chapter 8: Cuddy, by phineyj /u 

House is up to something, and I doubt I'm going to like it; my discussion with Wilson earlier left me sure of that. Well, neither of them know anything concrete, just a name, so I refuse to worry about it.

I glance back at House as I leave Diagnostics. He's standing, leaning casually against the conference table, obviously waiting for his team, and me, to disappear from view before he does whatever he's planning to do next. I can tell his leg hurts him a lot today, and he'll do anything he can to stop them noticing, although I know Cameron can usually tell too.

I hate to see him limping. Whenever I see him in pain, it reminds me of the part I played in bringing that about. Stacy really did a number on him, but she wasn't the only one. Sometimes I can hardly recognize the man I knew at Michigan, but now and again, a glimmer of the old Greg slips through.

------

I want him the instant I first see him. I am drinking coffee in the sunshine, sitting on a bench outside the University of Michigan library, trying to finish reading a pathology book before my tutorial. He walks past, a sports bag over his shoulder, and the sun glints in his dark brown hair. I note his powerful walk and distant expression. He doesn't see me. I do some research and find out his name; Greg House, and that he's a grad student, also in medicine. I find out which bars he goes to and finally, a week or two later, we're in the same one at the same time. It looks like an accident, but it's not.

I know I'm looking good; I spent more than I can afford on this top. What I'm not expecting is an argument; one that makes me think. He marked one of my case reports. I didn't know that until he said so – we never know which TA marks what – and it's only after he's spent the best part of an hour deconstructing what I wrote that he says, offhand, "You're much less awful at this than other first years, Lisa," and I suddenly realize that maybe I don't need to drop out after all.

He walks me back to the residences and I know he'd like to come up, but I don't invite him. I'm not afraid of being thought easy; judging by the things I've heard through the walls these last few weeks, I doubt my room-mates would be shocked by anything. But he's a man, not a boy, and I don't want to feel a fool. So I settle for a kiss on the steps; he kisses very well; I feel an unfamiliar stirring in my belly as he tangles a hand into my hair and tips my chin up with the other. Later, in bed, and after every other time I go out with him, I have to bring myself off before I can sleep.

It's Christmas Day when it finally happens. Everyone else is on vacation. I go home for Hanukkah but I come back after a few days to catch up with some work while things are quiet. That's what I tell myself, anyway, because the alternative would be to admit that the absence of my brother still casts a pall over every family gathering.

I bump into him in the empty computer labs, which amazingly, are open this day like any other. I ask him why he's not at home, and then I'm sorry I said anything, when a shadow passes across his face. "I was," he says, and doesn't elaborate any further.

He asks me what I'm working on and, glad to change the subject, I show him. It's an essay on diagnostics, and he goes through the cases I've chosen as examples, not knowing the final one has been a regular feature in my nightmares these last six years. Of course, it's the one he finds the most intriguing, and after a few minutes thought, he figures out exactly what was wrong and sets out what he would have done.

He invites me back to his apartment. He doesn't need to tell me that his two room-mates – fortunately, away for the holidays – are both men. The pile of sports equipment in the hallway, the porn mags in the bathroom and the heap of sweaty sneakers behind the TV tell me all I need to know.

His bedroom, however, is clean enough; not that I have a lot of time to look around. As soon as the door shuts behind us he's got his hands under my top undoing my bra. He's looming over me, blue eyes intent on my face, and I'm suddenly keenly aware of his height. His tongue is in my mouth and his hands are on my breasts, teasing my nipples into tight points, and he's backing me toward his bed.

"Are you safe?" he asks, as he expertly divests me of my jeans and soaked panties, and I thank God I shaved this morning. I nod, because I am still on the pill, despite the fact I dumped my high school boyfriend around mid-term; I wasn't sure why I did it even, but now I think I know. It's a shock when Greg enters me, because there's a lot of him, but I soon adjust, and when I do, it feels amazing, and then when he shoves a pillow under my hips, the increased pressure on my clit makes me come so hard I see stars.

"I like what Santa brought me for Christmas," he says, smirking, as my breathing slows down and I wonder idly whether he actually won all the sports trophies I can see on the other side of the room, or whether they are just for show. And even then, I know this is going to be addictive.

------

I've walked right past my office and am standing, randomly, outside Medical Records before I realize. So I drop in and pretend I'm making a spot check on their audit compliance. After a cathartic – for me – half hour while they scurry about looking guilty, I go back to my desk, where I try, and fail, to concentrate on my email and ignore the message from PR telling me to call back another million or so journalists. All the while, my brain is on a constant loop of vividly-remembered images and sensations I just do not need there right now. So I tell myself three things, sternly.

I do not want Greg House.

I am just a little lonely.

And a woman in my position can't afford to take stupid risks.

u Chapter 9: House, by snarkbait /u 

I'm waiting outside the Coyote's room, hanging around reception, much to the nurses' distress. I want his wife to leave his room. I'm not in the mood for a thousand worried and pointless questions.

As if somehow, the more informed she is, the better we can treat her dying husband.

I look on the reception chart and see I have half an hour before the first of the scheduled tests begins.

Eventually – finally - his wife leaves the room. I head in, and I'm closing the door behind me before he notices I'm even in the room.

He blinks and looks at me. He's pale, similar to the color of sour milk; off-white and curdled.

Beads of sweat roll down his chin and forehead.

"Who …are you," he chugs out.

"My name's Dr House; I'm overseeing your case," I say and move closer to him.

He's clinging to his stomach for all he's worth and his breathing is labored; I can tell it's from the pain in his abdomen and not a problem with his chest because he's not wheezing.

He's trying to control his lungs and the searing pain they cause when they fill and empty.

"Dr Cuddy," he begins, and then closes his eyes and seems to cling harder to his stomach.

I notice he's been set up to self-administer his pain medication, and he's not maxed out yet.

I reach over and click the button, until he's two from the limit.

"Mentioned you," he finishes through gritted teeth.

"Did she now; I figured you'd have been in far too much pain to listen to a word she had to say. I have a hard time holding on to her words when I'm not dying."

His features crinkle slightly, and he observes me before closing his eyes again.

I move his hands away from his body, and press either side of his stomach.

Chase was right; it isn't distended, but the 'almost' scream of pain he makes when I apply barely any pressure to his abdomen, suggests something is very wrong inside there.

"No…she mentioned you…last night," he stutters out in a whisper.

"Uh huh," I say, almost ignoring him, and then his words penetrate.

"Last night; I wasn't on your case last…" I let my words trail away.

His eyes are closed, and he starts panting.

Bitch, she was going to give it to me anyway.

"She said you're the best diagnostician in Jersey, which is strange, seeing as I have only just met you."

"I don't need to meet you, to treat you, just wanted to see if you were as short as you look on MTV," I reply.

Then a thought occurs to me, regarding something Foreman mentioned.

Past alcohol abuse.

He could be having withdrawal if he never quit the bottle like he said he did. I believe a rock star even less than I believe a teenage heroin addict.

"When did you give up the hooch?" I ask, as he hugs himself again.

"The…what?"

"Booze; they still have beer in England, right? I thought it was the fuel of a thousand football hooligans," I say. He smiles - ever so slightly - although it's gone pretty quickly.

"And I thought all Americans were fat. I gave up drinking two months before I married my wife," Sam says.

I think I like this guy, despite myself. I like people who can hold their sarcasm, even when they're in excruciating pain.

"You sure about that? If the tests we're about to do don't help us to diagnose what's wrong, we'll have to cut you open; that's going to leave a nasty scar. If you're still hitting the gin before a gig, it's better we know now," I say.

He looks pissed at the suggestion, genuinely pissed, and not defensively pissed.

"Hey mate; I don't drink any more, and I don't care what you have to do, as long as it gets rid of this agony in my stomach," he says, and then he lets out a groan with the effort of shouting at me.

"Stop getting all bent out of shape; it's not good for the intense belly pain," I return.

He gets his breathing under control, then gives me a jaded look.

"I think I prefer Dr Cuddy to you; her bedside manner is much better than yours."

"Bedside manner?" I muse, thoughtfully. "I must have missed that class at college; I think I was out getting stoned with my bros that day, but you know how that is."

"I'd take her making up a story about her brother to make me feel better, over you accusing me of being an alcoholic," he says.

I'm about to rip into that one with a cutting reply, when wifey returns from her bathroom break and one little word gets lodged in my brain.

Brother.

Cuddy doesn't have a brother.

I've heard her talk fondly of her sisters on countless occasions; but I'm certain she's never mentioned a brother.

And then I realize she's been acting like she did when her handyman fell off the roof; guilty, and giving out needless personal information. But the burning question is; why should she feel guilty about band guy, and what does it have to do with a brother she doesn't have?

I leave the room, as the Coyote's wife starts to aim a barrage of questions at me. I could only answer her in a language she wouldn't understand, so what's the point? I have no answers for her until the tests come back, anyway.

I don't think the Coyote is lying; I do think he's going to die unless we get to the bottom of this very soon.

But someone else is lying, and I want to know why.

------

I'm sitting in my office at my desk, turning the puzzle pieces over and over in my mind.

It's where I've been for the past two hours.

I'm about to go and get some more coffee, when my memory coughs something up.

For some reason, stuff just comes to me sometimes; it's a gift I suppose.

Information I should have forgotten settles upon me; sometimes it's not remotely important, and sometimes it's vital.

This particular memory is of something Cuddy said to me a few months ago. It was around the time my parents came to visit.

She encouraged me to lie to my mother; when I questioned if she lied to hers:

"Only since I was twelve," was her reply.

It was highly insignificant when she said it then, but now I think about it, it isn't the first time she's mentioned that particular age.

Someone asked her at a fundraising dinner, how long she had wanted to be a doctor. I remember the serious look that crept onto her face as she answered, and the forced smile that followed her answer of:

"Since I was twelve."

And it was an honest answer.

So, Cuddy, what happened to you when you were twelve, that you had to lie about, and made you want to become a doctor?

I don't know, but I quickly work out the year in which Cuddy was twelve.

I log onto the hospital mainframe and soon I'm running the name Cuddy, David, through a birth record database, to see if there is a certificate.

Cuddy grew up in Baltimore.

So I start with the Maryland hospital records first.

It brings up nothing; a prompt suggests I type in the date of birth of the patient.

This is going to take a while. I start younger because I know she's the oldest, so I start ten years younger than her for the date of birth, and work my way to her age.

Nothing. I keep going, maybe he's older; one, two and three years older than Cuddy gives me nothing, but when I type in Cuddy, David, 1964, Johns Hopkins blips onto the screen, and then I find one item on the search index.

I open it up, and I find way more than I bargained for.

And then all but one of my questions is answered.

The who, the what, the where and the how – are solved.

Now I'd just like to know why?

And there is only one place I can find out the answer to that question. It has to be asked, not guessed, or searched for.

Cuddy's probably gone home for the day now; I grab my bike jacket and head out of the office.

u Chapter 10: Cameron, by phineyj /u 

Chase and Foreman have scrubbed in and so I volunteer to sit with Cathy while it happens. I feel so sorry for her. I watched several surgeries on my husband, and I remember only too well how it feels to watch people cutting holes in someone you love.

We stare through the glass wall as the instruments are prepared and Sam is wheeled in, his hair a dark smudge against the white pillow.

"I can't believe all this is the result of an asthma attack," Cathy says, brushing a hand distractedly through her short hair, "He's had it since he was a child; it's never been a big problem before."

I don't think this is the time to explain House's theory that the asthma is a symptom, not a cause, so instead I ask, "When did you two get together?"

"At a gig in Berlin," she says, "I was managing this band; a really terrible indie band, and they were supporting The Coyotes one night and I got talking to Sam backstage. Next thing I knew, I'd ditched the first lot and was on tour with Sam. We got together a week later and were married within the year."

"And you're his tour manager as well?" I ask, remembering Foreman mentioning this.

"Yeah. He tours more than half the year; I'd never see him, otherwise. I'd hate to be one of those tag-along wives, flying out to wherever the band is this week." She looks down at the OR again, "What are they doing now?"

I explain what an exploratory laparoscopy is, and that they're going to take a closer look at Sam's bowel, because of what they saw on the CT.

Dr Chen is doing the surgery; I think House had to call in a favor, because it's well known he's impossible to get. So I guess now House owes him big, unless he's got something on him; knowing my boss, either possibility is equally likely. I've learnt a lot from House, not all of it medical.

Something's wrong though; Chen has barely made the incision and done a first sweep of the abdomen when he shakes his head and motions for the stapler, and less ten minutes in total have passed before he's closed and Sam's being wheeled back out of the OR again.

Chase looks up at me; fortunately he's not tactless enough to give a thumbs down while the patient's wife is sitting right beside me, but his expression is grim and I can tell from his tense body language that whatever they've found inside Sam's abdomen is very bad news.

"It's all done," I say to Cathy, in what I hope is a reassuring tone, "We should go back to the room now, then you'll be there when they bring him back." She nods her head and follows me.

But as we're walking back downstairs, I get a page from Chase to say that they've taken him straight to ICU.

------

I have been in so many ICUs, all different, but relatives always do the same thing. They go in, looking nervous, then they approach the patient; then they think about holding their hand but back off when they can't work out how to get round all the wires and tubes and monitors.

Sam is heavily sedated and will stay that way until we figure out what to do. Dr Chen found that the huge numbers of white cells Sam's body had been producing had settled around his small intestine. As a result, his bowel has almost completely rotted away inside him; damage to the blood vessels has caused peritonitis and gangrene.

Cathy turns to me, as pale as chalk, and asks the sixty-four million dollar question, "Is he going to die?"

And I think he probably is.

u Chapter 11: Cuddy, by phineyj /u 

When I get home, I find House sitting on my doorstep, reading a gossip magazine. His ridiculous orange bike is parked in my driveway – or perhaps abandoned would be a more accurate term. Fantastic. Now he's stalking me. This is exactly what I need.

"Take the scenic route? I've been waiting ages," he moans, which is a bit rich considering that I didn't ask him to come. In fact, I would probably pay him to go away. I wonder for a second if this is his latest idea to get out of clinic hours; refuse to let me in my own door until I agree to whatever he's got in mind.

"I'm surprised you didn't just break in," I say, testily, glad that I moved the key from under the flowerpot after his last impromptu visit.

"I leave that sort of thing to Foreman," he replies, loftily, hauling himself to his feet and stepping to one side so I can open the door.

I slam the door behind him with a bad grace; throw my coat and briefcase on the hall chair and turn to face him. At least this way we can have the inevitable argument in private, rather than providing a free show for my neighbors.

"Shouldn't you be at work, House?" I ask, making no effort to conceal the fact I'm pissed. "You know, dying patient and all that?"

"Dastardly and Muttley can observe a laparoscopy without me," he says, dismissively, "And St. Cameron's there with the wife; they can page me when they've got something to tell me."

With that, he pushes past me and limps into my living room, where he lowers himself into an armchair, and removes a manila folder from inside his leather jacket.

"Oh, make yourself at home," I say, "I'm all ears to hear what it is can't wait until we're both at work tomorrow."

I switch a lamp on, perch myself on the arm of the couch and kick my heels off; I'm tired and hungry and I could use a glass of wine, but I'm damned if I'm going to offer him a drink.

He looks up at me and then glances back down at the folder in his lap.

"This is David's file," he says, and waits for my reaction.

I feel as though he's slapped me. I can't think what to say, and so I concentrate very hard on the way the light from the lamp reflects in the polished wood floor, while I try to suppress the rising tide of bile in my throat.

When I can speak again, I ask, "And this is your business, because?" and I want to sound authoritative, as I normally would when telling him off for something outrageous he's done, but I can hear my voice shaking, and I hate it.

And eventually, he says, quietly, looking down at the file and not at me, "Because I want to know why you feel guilty about something that wasn't your fault."

"Give me that," I say, and he passes the file to me, and I sit down on the couch and open it with clumsy hands. We sit in silence while I read, and I remember the worst day of my life.

------

The car pulls up in the driveway just after one o'clock on Sunday morning. I've been in bed a couple of hours but I couldn't get to sleep. I put Jenny to bed just after David left, and finally got Ruth and Rachel to do likewise about ten, after major threats involving me telling my mother to ban them from TV for a week, which they know she would, because she has before.

I hear David let himself in the side door, walk through the house, use the bathroom and come upstairs. I want to check he's okay, but on the other hand, I'm still so angry with him that I don't want to speak to him right now. I hear him pause outside my door, but I lie very quietly, listening to Jenny's even breathing from the other side of the room, muffled slightly by the curtain that separates her half from mine. And after a while, I hear his footsteps continue in the direction of his bedroom.

The next day, it's late by the time I've managed to evict the twins from their comfy beds and persuaded Jenny to get up and dressed. This is followed by her taking all her clothes off while my back's turned and then I have to get her back into them again – Mom says she's going through an exhibitionist phase.

We all eat cereal, even though it's practically lunchtime, and it's only when I'm telling Ruth not to feed Jenny another bowl of chocolate frosted flakes, because she's practically bouncing off the ceiling with caffeine as it is, that I think to wonder why David's not up. He does like to lie in bed, particularly when our parents aren't here to find him chores to do, but it's not like him to miss a meal.

I go upstairs, trying not to notice that Jenny is now wearing her cereal bowl as a hat and has milk running down her nose, and knock at his door. I get no response, so I knock again, more loudly, and am rewarded by a muffled groan.

I push the door open, and as I expected, my brother is lying prone in bed. I move closer and notice he doesn't look so good; the parts of his face which aren't flushed red are an unpleasant shade of whitish-green.

"Are you all right?" I say, tentatively, not wanting to be too sympathetic. I doubt he'd drink and drive, but then, before last night, I wouldn't have thought he'd yell at me and run off with the car keys, either. He doesn't respond, so I pull the covers off him, and he shouts and clutches at his stomach.

"Does your tummy hurt?" I ask, now getting worried. He nods his head, and whispers, "Gonna throw up." I run and grab the first container I can find, which is the trash can, and he retches into it. Gross.

"I should call Mom," I tell him, "Or the doctor. Or maybe both."

I really don't want to call our parents though, because it's their wedding anniversary, and they've gone to a cottage my aunt and uncle own on the lake, and they hardly ever get to borrow it. And if David and I go to the doctor and don't ask them first, they're not going to be very pleased, either, because our health cover was with my Dad's job, and he was laid off six months ago. Then I think that I could call my aunt instead – but I remember the row that happened after she got David his expensive guitar, and think better of it.

So I'm relieved when my brother says, "No. Don't. It's just a bug. I'll sleep it off."

"You don't think it's your appendix?" I ask.

"No. It feels completely different to that," he says, pulling himself up to a half sitting position, and looking like he's going to spew again for a second, but then managing not to. "Anyway, they said the antibiotics had fixed it, didn't they?"

I remember all the fuss that was made of him when he had to be admitted to hospital, and the sense of anticlimax when he was discharged after a couple of days with just a packet of pills and without the dramatic scar he was hoping for.

"Okay," I decide, thinking aloud. "Just stay there. If you still feel bad tomorrow, Mom can take you to the doctor when she gets back."

"Keep the kids out of here, will you, Lisa?" David asks, turning over carefully and lying back down on his left hand side.

"I'll try," I say, gloomily. It's going to be even more impossible to stop them running wild without his help, but I'm going to have to do my best.

Mom calls that evening, and when she asks, I tell her everything's fine. David has seemed a little better during the afternoon, and even got up and watched TV for a couple of hours while the others were out on their bikes. She asks to speak to him, but I lie and tell her he's round at his friend Pete's, because I know he'll sound funny.

The next morning is the usual mad dash to get my three sisters dressed, fed and off to school. I don't even have time to check on David, because every minute between six and seven a.m. is taken up with one crisis after another, from Rachel's missing hair slide to Jenny's mini-tantrum when I try to get her to finish her toast. I'm feeling quite weak by the time I pack them on the school bus, and looking forward to tomorrow, when Mom will be around to help.

"David!" I shout, as I go back up the stairs. I doubt he's feeling like school, but if he's not going, I need to know. I have to leave myself in a few minutes and I want to borrow his bike, because mine has a puncture.

And that's when I find my brother passed out on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood and shit.

------

I leaf through the file, while House watches me silently. It's all here, and even as my anger builds at him for confronting me with this unwanted relic of my past, a small part of me is admiring the efficiency of Johns Hopkins' record-keeping. I find notes of the tests they did on David when he was first admitted with what was thought to be a grumbling appendix, and a copy of the script for antibiotics, together with a discharge summary.

The next few sheets are the ER admissions forms from six months later when we went to the hospital in an ambulance, that Monday morning when I finally figured out there were worse things than my parents being angry at me for spending money we didn't have.

Toward the end of the file, I find a note from the attending to the effect that, as the patient is only accompanied by a minor, they can't operate until they have parental consent. It's stapled to a fax to a legal firm asking them to start proceedings to make David Cuddy a ward of court. And I know full well what the final leaf of paper will be, and I don't want to see it.

------

No-one can get hold of my parents. There's a phone in the cottage, but they're not picking up; they've probably already set off home already. I offer my aunt's number, but she's not reachable either. Morning turns into afternoon and David rouses a bit, and asks for Mom. He doesn't know where he is or who I am.

Medical staff scurry in and out of the room, taking an increasingly urgent series of readings and conferring in whispers about things I don't understand; one word they keep saying is peritonitis. I hold my brother's hand, but he's barely conscious now, because of whatever they gave him for the pain; he's hooked up to wires and tubes and has a breathing mask. He looks scary now, like a robot.

One of the machines starts bleeping in a frantic kind of way, jerking me out of my half-doze, and I'm suddenly being taken out of the room, and a nurse makes me sit in a small room down the corridor, and I don't want to stay there, but I don't quite dare go back in David's room, either.

After a long time, the nice lady doctor comes into the room and tells me my brother is dead. I don't cry, because the whole day has felt like a strange dream, and I think that if I pinch myself, I'll be back at home, and David will tell me to stop being so silly. It's only when I walk back into our house, after a terrible car journey of Mom weeping and Dad telling her it's not her fault, that I truly realize whose fault it is.

------

I put the papers carefully back into the file again and put it down on the coffee table.

"This was the case you told me about at Michigan, wasn't it?" House says, quietly, "An undiagnosed appendicocutaneous fistula; atypical presentation without pyuria?"

I close my eyes and continue, "Leading to peritonitis, septicemia, shock and death. A CT would have probably saved him, but they didn't get one until the following year. Ironic, isn't it?"

I think of the ultrasound I've just looked at in the file, which provided you know what you're looking for, clearly shows the attachment of the engorged appendix to the bowel.

House clears his throat. "Cuddy…Lisa. This was NOT your fault. If anyone's to blame, it's the doctors who discharged him in the first place and didn't do any follow up."

If I wasn't feeling like crap I would call him on that one. Because House is so well known for his diligent approach to following up on patients.

"My dad lost his job the week before he was admitted the first time," I tell him. "It says in the file they were advised he should have the operation, but they couldn't afford it."

"It still wasn't your fault," he repeats, getting to his feet and coming over to where I'm sitting.

"It was my fault," I tell him, feeling a tightness in my chest, "I was the one who delayed. The delay killed him. I should have known."

"Yeah, you're right," House says, in his favorite patronizing tone, the one he likes to use on clinic patients, his team and well, me, "You should have been able to see the future. You, a twelve year old girl, should have been able to take care of three little kids, one stroppy teenager, and diagnose a mystery illness that actual, if moronic, doctors had told you was fixed."

I'm suddenly so angry that I can hardly breathe, and I'm on my feet, in his face, because I will hit him if he says another sarcastic word.

"Do you know why I'm always on your case about that fucking clinic, House?" I shout at him, and I've obviously surprised him, either by the swearing or the shouting, because he just stands there and watches.

"It's not because it says you have to go there in your contract, or because I think it'll do your soul good, or even because I just love busting your ass. It's for the simple reason the people that go there can't afford to go anywhere else, and you're the best diagnostician we've got. I know damn well you could have cured David, but there was no House, no clinic and I lost my brother and I'm never going to get him back."

I choke on the last few words, because I'm crying, and I put a hand to my face. I can hardly bear the shame of it. I hear the creak of a leather jacket, and House reaches an arm out to me and pulls me to him, and I think I'm hallucinating, because I can't believe he would lose this golden opportunity to mock me some more.

At length, I come to my senses and realize whose shoulder I'm weeping on, and that this can't end well.

I take a step back and look at him through blurry eyes, but he doesn't say anything, simply hands me a handkerchief, and I blow my nose. I look up, afraid of what I'm going to see; afraid I'm going to lose it again, but to my surprise, I can't see anything but sympathy in his blue eyes.

And then I'm doing something I swore to myself I never would again; something I have spent years perfecting a system to avoid happening.

I'm kissing Greg House.

i To be continued… /i 


	4. Chapter 4

Authors' note : This chapter contains adult material. Please only read if you are of age.

Chapter 12: House, by snarkbait

Cuddy is kissing me, and it doesn't feel real for a moment.

It's like when you can see something is about to happen, and then you can't quite believe your eyes when it does.

I really wasn't expecting this.

Her tongue is in my mouth, and with a slow, methodical swirl, she persuades me to return her kiss.

All of the hairs on my arms are standing up on end and, as she lays one of her palms on my chest, I wonder if she can feel how fast my heart is beating.

I suddenly feel about fifteen years old, and I don't know why; it's not like we haven't done this before, but it was a long time ago, and things were very different then.

I really don't think this is a good idea; this isn't what I came here for.

How long has it been, though? I've always suspected we'd do this again. Maybe it's time I think less and kiss more.

So I close my eyes, and just go with it.

Even though I know that it will bring us one step closer to doing something she'll regret like hell tomorrow.

The kiss slows down and I open my eyes just as she's opening hers; we move apart slightly, but I kiss her quickly on the lips before she pulls completely away from me.

She instantly tenses up, and I can see the uncertainty in her body language; she's not sure she should have done that, any more than I'm sure I should have let her, but it happened, and I don't think either one of us would dispute that it felt good.

In fact for once, neither of us is saying anything, we're just looking at each other, and it's starting to make me nervous, because regardless of how good it feels, it's still a really bad idea.

She's upset; she doesn't really want this, why would she? She hates me.

"Wow," I say, and then swallow. "You must be really upset; you'd have to be emotionally unstable to do what you just did," I joke, trying to reach for our normal language of insults, because insults, snipes and cutting remarks are 'our' normal.

Holding her in my arms and kissing her is not normal.

She looks away and I instantly wish I hadn't said anything.

She tries to move further away from me, but I reach out and pull her back.

"It's your fault I'm upset; what did you think was going to happen? You always have to keep pushing," she says, and she resists me as I tug her gently back toward me. She finally gives in when I have my arms around her waist.

Then we're staring into each other's eyes again, and we need to stop that shit, because we aren't teenagers.

I look away first. There is something questioning in her expression, and I don't have any answers for her.

I have nothing for her in that respect; nothing she wants to hear, and nothing I want to say.

I have two options; it doesn't matter which I pick, because things are going to be awkward tomorrow, either way.

So we might as well get laid.

I look at her again, and then lean in and instigate the second kiss, placing my hand on her left cheek.

My other hand stays around her waist and I pull her closer until her body is pressed against mine, and that's when I notice her shaking ever so slightly against me.

And for the first time in a very long time, she reminds me of the girl I knew back at Michigan.

The kiss becomes rougher, as she forces her tongue into my mouth, trying to take control back from me. She starts to push against me, and I stagger back and hit the sofa, which I fall onto hard.

It hurts, and I can't help but let out a slight groan into her mouth as she falls on top of me, but she moves her weight to my left instantly and gets off me, then she looks at my leg.

"Shit, House, I'm sorry …" she begins.

"It's okay," I say, and I know this is going to sober her up; any minute now, she's going to start backing out.

"I shouldn't have…we probably shouldn't…." she begins.

"I should go," I say, wiping her lipstick from my face with the back of my hand.

"Because you can't finish what you started," she says quietly, staring at me.

"I didn't start that," I say defensively, looking away.

She's standing in front of me, and she takes hold of my chin to make me look at her.

"Yes you did; you didn't have to come here and shove that file in my face, but you just couldn't help yourself," she says.

I sit forward, sitting half on and half off the sofa. I have no idea what I should do now.

"Why did you come here, House?" she demands, calmly.

"I wanted to know why you felt guilty about something that wasn't your fault," I reply, uneasily.

And it's the truth, for once. That is all I came here for.

"And what you want, you get," she states, heatedly.

"Always," I return quietly.

She lets go of my chin and I look past her at the fireplace.

Her sisters are frozen and collected along the top of it: graduations, weddings and birthdays, and a lot of children, none of them hers.

"If you think that file tells you all you need to know about what happened with my brother, you're wrong," she says.

"Am I?" I reply.

"This was none of your business," she says distantly, and I'm not sure if she's saying it to me, the room or herself.

I chance a quick glance at her.

She's lost in thought again. I get up, using the arm on the sofa for leverage, and pick up my cane.

My aim is to get out of her home before she kicks me out, but she grabs my arm.

"Don't run away; it's all you ever do. You've stuck this in my face, now you deal with it," she says quietly.

"Like you helped me deal with my leg…" I begin, and I regret it the minute it's out of my mouth.

I don't want her to know I think about that sort of stuff. We're reaching a level of honesty we haven't been near in a very long time, and it makes me feel uncomfortable.

I didn't really mean to say that; I don't even remotely want to make this about me.

"So this is your way of punishing me?" she asks.

I shake my head. "No, it's not," I say, truthfully, but she probably finds it hard to believe I tell the truth at all these days.

I look down at her hand, and then at her.

---

The next thing I know, my shirt is on her bedroom floor.

I'm sitting on her bed, she's standing in between my legs and we're kissing again.

Her hands are resting on my shoulders and my hands are just below her buttocks resting on her thighs, fingers either side of the slit in her black skirt at the back.

The drapes are open in the room, and I'm about to suggest she shut them, when she pushes me down onto her bed, and climbs on top of me, avoiding my leg this time.

We're still kissing.

I remember the last time I was here, after I'd broken in when Alfresco (or whatever his name was) fell off the roof.

And for some random reason I wonder if her roof is fixed now; it's an odd thought to have, really, considering Cuddy's hand is creeping along my stomach, over my navel, coming to a rest between my legs.

Then I inhale deeply as she rubs my semi-hard dick through my jeans.

I couldn't stop this now, if I wanted to.

I can't help but think how much things have changed. The last time I screwed Lisa Cuddy, I was on top. I think she's planning to screw me, this time, and under the circumstances, I don't think I'm going to try to stop her.

I run my hands under the hem of her skirt and slide my hands up the smooth curve of her legs. Her back arches forward slightly as I do this.

I give her ass a squeeze, both buttocks, as I reach it, and she responds by rubbing the bulge in my jeans harder.

I should probably get them off before it becomes impossible to get them past my hard-on.

I'm relieved when she starts to fumble at the zip; it's always better to take your pants off when you're being encouraged to, rather than just doing it, and hoping it's the right thing

to do.

I remove my hands from her ass, deciding if she's going to take me out of my pants, then it's only right I get to cop a feel of her two greatest assets.

I slide my hands under her low cut vest top and slide it up and over her head, tossing it behind me, and I have a perfect view of her tits as they hang inches from my nose.

I remove her pale blue bra very quickly, and I'm rather proud of the speed, considering I'm a little rusty.

I place a hand on each breast, as she tugs at the waistband of my jeans and drags then down to my knees. By the time she grabs hold of my cock, I have one of her nipples in my mouth.

I curl my tongue around the tip of it, then take it into my mouth and suck softly.

I groan against her as she tugs me free from my boxers and begins to jerk me off, although it's not going to take long to get me fully hard at this rate.

I'm about to help her remove her skirt when she stops jerking; my eyes slide away from her breasts and then she sits up, and gets off the bed

"Don't stop now," I say breathlessly; I'm getting harder by the second.

She mutters something, but I miss it, and then she disappears into her bathroom.

For a split second I think she's changed her mind, leaving me semi naked on her bed with my jeans around my ankles.

But before my paranoia sets in completely, she comes back, minus her skirt, wearing only her pale blue panties and holding a condom.

Thank fuck for that.

I get out of my jeans, and then hold my hand out to her; she takes it, and I pull her back on top of me, suddenly deciding it's not a bad position for her to be in, at all.

I re-introduce my stiff cock into her hand and she palms it, continuing what she started earlier.

Our mouths meet again as we begin kissing; our lips are wet, so the kiss is sloppy and hard to maintain, considering I'm really trying not to come before she has a chance to become a much more integral part of this process.

I like kissing Cuddy, she's good at it; I'd forgotten how good.

God, she's even better at this though, I decide, watching her hand as she shuffles it up and down faster.

The condom has fallen on the bed; I pick it up and rip the packet open and hand it to her.

Then I lie back and close my eyes. And for the record, I still think this is a bad idea; a really good, bad idea.

Chapter 12: Cuddy, by phineyj

House tastes much as he always did; a little bitter from the Vicodin, but it's only an oral complement to the increasing bitterness of the man himself.

He still has the knack all right; I remember how kissing him when we were at Michigan felt like some other activity altogether than what I used to do with my high school boyfriend. What is different is how uncertain he looks today. The man I remember was so cocky and sure he was welcome.

I don't care. It's all his fault. My life is fine. It should be; it worked out just how I planned it. High school, medical school, and the rest. A first job, a better job; an even better job; the house, the car, the fuck-off office with the brass name plate. Not for me hanging round in my parents' tiny, over furnished home, while my younger sisters got married one by one and my mother went slowly crazy.

I had a system and it was working for me, and I don't need Greg House to make me think about things I've buried so deep no-one here even knew about them before today.

How dare he look up David's file and shove it in my face like that? He doesn't care if I feel guilty, or why. It was just another fascinating puzzle for him to solve, and as a bonus, something he'll have over me for ever.

I'm kissing him more angrily now and I'm suddenly overcome with a cold wave of self-loathing. I said I wasn't going to do this again. I should never have slept with him after the infarction. It made both of us feel worse, and given his state at the time, that was quite an achievement. I remember how bleak the expression on his face was when he said, "You can't make this up to me."

I step back, ready to end this before things go any further, but the look in his eyes pulls me up short. There's confusion there, all mixed up with desire, and – surely not – just a little bit of remorse, gone as soon as it appears. He says I'm emotionally unstable. Hold the front page: Lisa Cuddy has emotions.

This is a big, big, mistake, and I'm just about to say exactly that, when he kisses me. And this time I'm half expecting it to happen, and because I'm not in shock I relax, and he has his arms around me, and that's what undoes me, because I suddenly need that contact. My mind is whirling with so many things; the past, the present and future all mixed up in one blur of half-digested emotion. The way I feel right now – the way he made me feel – I need to be with someone who knows me; sees me as I really am.

Besides which, it's good. I realize how I've missed this; not just Greg, although he'd probably be gratified to know how often I do remember the times I was with him, in the middle of some undistinguished sexual encounter. No, it's not just because it's him; I can't even remember the last time I touched someone and felt anything other than a vague worry about whether I've brushed my teeth or if I'll be able to remember where I left the car. It's as though to do this job, and do it well, I've had to kill off one by one all the bits of me that used to take risks and have fun. The bits that felt something.

The need for contraception dawns on me rather late in the day, when we're already in my bedroom, more undressed then dressed, and he's sitting on my bed with an expression on his face stuck somewhere between, 'I can't believe my luck' and 'I wonder how quickly I can make it out the door?' When I get to the bathroom, I have a minor panic over the fact that I may not, in fact, actually possess any condoms, until I remember the ones I bought in a hopeful frame of mind at a conference last fall and stuck in my travel wash kit.

I don't look at him as I step out of my panties and slide the condom onto his now fully erect cock. I'm too afraid of what I'll see. Does he feel sorry for me? Is this some sort of half-baked attempt to make up for the trauma he's put me through this evening? Would we be here at all if I hadn't, basically, leapt on him? I risk a glance and almost laugh when I see he's got his eyes closed. Oh well, in for a dime, in for a dollar. I rise up on my knees a bit and lower myself onto him, carefully, because it's been a while.

Ah. I luxuriate in the sensation of being filled and I remember why I used to like this. As I start to move, House's eyes snap open and I lean down to kiss him, but have to stop, as we fall into a long-forgotten rhythm and our tempo speeds up. My hands are on his shoulders and his are on my hips, and he reaches two long fingers up to reach my clit, which jumps under his touch; I lean into his hand, and close my eyes. This feels strange, and awkward, and familiar and easy, all at the same time, and I'm not thinking much of anything now. The world has reduced to his hand on me, and his cock inside me, and the wiry scrape of his pubic hair as we move together and apart.

He used to talk to me when we had sex; say flirty things and filthy things and make silly comments; I liked it; no-one I'd ever slept with before college had done that. But after his infarction we fucked – there's no other way of describing it – in total silence, and there's no sound in the room tonight, either, apart from the soft, sweaty noise our bodies make as they slide together.

The quiet helps me focus, though, and somewhere under the weight of worry and doubt, a half-forgotten sensation is building in me, teasing me with a sparkly hint of what's to come. I lean forward a little, and rest some more of my weight on House, and I moan, because that's it; that's what I'd nearly forgotten; that sense of being locked into an inevitable trajectory, beyond doubt, beyond thought, when the end is in sight and all there is to do is feel.

Suddenly, I'm there, clenching around him; the wave has hit me and I'm gripping on to House like the alternative is being washed away, and someone's shouting, and as he moves more quickly, moaning something incoherent and holds me with a grip that'll leave bruises in the morning, I realize that someone is me.

I roll off him. House lies there, looking slightly stunned, and he says, breathlessly, "Remind me why we waited this long?"

---

I must have dozed off, because when House's pager bleeps I wake with a start. He looks over at me, and then at the inky-dark crumple of his leather jacket where it's lying on my bedroom carpet, just out of reach. I'm just thinking of getting up and fetching it for him, when his cell starts to ring in the pocket of his jeans. He leans down for his cane, hooks the jeans with it and drags them close enough so he can extract the phone.

Pulling himself up into a sitting position, he says, brusquely, "Better be good," and then listens to whatever the caller's got to tell him for about five seconds, until he loses patience and butts in with, "Yeah, I kind of got that from the ICU part. Serious like, dead before the night's out, or serious like, House, we need you to reassure us before the scary British paparazzi tear us limb from limb?"

He listens some more. I can't hear which of his team is on the phone, but I'm guessing Cameron, because she normally draws the short straw when it comes to giving House unwelcome news.

After a minute longer, he says, long-sufferingly, "OK, tell Chen I'll be there in half an hour and I don't want any more chunks cut off my patient before then, unless he wants chunks cut off him, capisce?" and hangs up.

He glances at me, and says, mostly to the counterpane, "Looks like we get to skip the awkward discussion about whether I stay or not, doesn't it?"

I honestly can't think of anything to say; I'm still fuzzy from pleasure, and simultaneously pissed at myself for being so weak, and relieved that he has to go. Then, I feel guilty because I feel relieved. So I settle for a nod, and roll over and pull the covers over my head, as though if I bury myself deep enough, all this will go away.

I hear him collect his clothes, and put them on, use the bathroom, and head out toward the hallway. I'm just waiting, tensely, for the sound of the front door closing, when instead I hear him coming back into the bedroom.

"I'm sorry about your brother," he says, quietly, and then, finally, he does go.

And as I listen to the sound of his motorbike fading into the distance, and absently smooth out the indentation in the pillow where his head was a few minutes ago, I know the question is not whether I'm going to regret this tomorrow, but how much.

_To be continued… _


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note: A relatively short part today; hopefully we will update again later this week when we're both a bit less busy. Do please review if you are reading this, if you have time, as it's encouraging to know what people think. Thanks.**

Chapter 13: Cameron, by phineyj

I look at my watch for the third time in as many minutes, and wonder just how much longer House is going to be. Across the table from me, Chase is openly dozing, leaning back in his chair, while the journal he was pretending to read hangs half off his lap.

Foreman has just gone back up to ICU to check Sam's stats again. He doesn't really need to do it; it is his turn, but I was only up there ten minutes ago. I note House's stash of Red Bull is missing a couple of cans and realize where Foreman's nervous energy is probably coming from.

I don't know why I'm so tired; it's not like one in the morning is particularly late for this job. It's probably because we've been running about all day, and now we can't do anything more for Sam until House gets here.

I'm thinking about resting my head on my arms just so I can close my eyes for a moment, when I hear a familiar step-limp in the corridor, and House comes in. He's wearing the same clothes he was earlier on, but the hair on the left side of his head is flattened down as though he's been sleeping on it. I suppose we must have got him out of bed, which would explain why it's taken him a while to get here.

"So, either of you figure out yet why band guy's gut is like Swiss cheese?" he asks, loudly, dropping his cane across the glass surface of the table. It makes a loud, resonating clatter and Chase wakes up so quickly he nearly falls over backwards out of his chair. I try not to laugh.

"Foreman is with the patient," I say, collecting myself, while Chase picks the journal up of the floor and pushes his hair out of his eyes, "Shall I page him down here, so we've got the latest stats for the differential?"

"What is it with Foreman today?" grumbles House, "Is he avoiding me?"

I take this as a yes, and I'm just about to page him, when he walks in the door.

"Sam's no worse, no better," Foreman reports, "He's sedated, intubated and we've given him IV steroids to reduce inflammation and antibiotics for infection."

He looks at House, who has uncapped a marker pen and is paused in front on the whiteboard, lost in thought.

"So we're thinking auto-immune now?" he asks, turning and looking round at me for confirmation. Which is odd. Why this sudden respect for my opinion? He seems a little off; like his mind's on something else.

"Yes. I think we should give him cyclophosphamide next; block any more cell growth while we work out what to do next," I say, looking at him closely and trying to figure out what might be bothering him.

"Have you got the video from the laparoscopy?" House asks.

Foreman throws it to him, and we all troop into the office to watch it. House winces when the camera pans over the diseased bowel, just like the rest of us did when we saw the real thing. It's not that any of us are squeamish; but it's upsetting to see a body system so obviously beyond repair; especially when we haven't worked out a diagnosis yet.

"Is Chen still here?" House asks, abruptly, hitting pause on the video. The image of matted, dead and dying bowel tissue hovers obscenely on the screen.

"He's gone to a hotel," I tell him, "He said he'd come back first thing tomorrow, to discuss surgery options."

I don't mention he asked me if I'd like to go to dinner with him, because why would I, and anyway, I said no.

"We've got to remove the dead bowel as soon as possible," says Chase, helpfully.

Foreman looks down at the printouts he brought down from Sam's room.

"Not tonight, we can't," he says, gloomily, "With stats like these, we could easily cause a spontaneous bowel perforation; he'll go into septic shock and die."

"Thank God you're here, Dr Foreman, that would never have occurred to me," House comments, but it lacks his normal bite.

"Chase, push cyclophosphamide and get some tissue samples so we can test for auto-immune disorders; Foreman, go see the OR clerk and get enough patients bumped off tomorrow's list so that Chen can operate first thing. Cameron, page him and tell him he's scrubbing in for eight; I take it you've got the number?" House glances over at me.

I'm nod, and I'm pretty sure I'm blushing, which is embarrassing. But to my surprise, he doesn't pick up on it.

"Right," he continues, "Then go and get consent from the wife. Then, I want all of you back down here with your thinking caps on so we can figure out our auto-immune ten most wanted."

As we leave the room, I glance back at House, who's still standing by the whiteboard, looking out of the window at the dark outline of the building opposite. I still don't know what's up with him, but there is one thing I've noticed. He smells of Cuddy's perfume. ouse

Chapter 14: Cuddy, by phineyj

I can't even remember the last time I've woken up feeling this rested. I feel really good, and I can't think why; for a moment I think I must be on vacation, but the fact I'm in my own bed tends to suggest not.

Then, I wake up properly, realize I'm completely naked and the events of last night come flooding back to me with a terrible clarity. I must have been out of my mind to let that happen.

My sense of panic mounts as I shower, dress, and force down a bowl of muesli. I'm on autopilot. It's seven o'clock already; normally I would be at work by now. Somehow, it doesn't surprise me that I forgot to set my alarm, but it's annoying to be late on top of feeling…hysterical.

I slept with House. Of all the people I could have picked. I get a sudden, vivid sense memory of how it felt, kneeling over him, his cock in me, his tongue in my mouth, and if I had time to go and get under a cold shower I would. I do not have space in my head for this.

I'm ready, at last, but I can't find my car keys. As I turn the sitting room upside down looking for them, eventually spotting them down the side of the couch, something else catches my eye. David's file is still lying on the coffee table; House must have forgotten to take it when he left. I put it in my briefcase; I'm not sure why.

---

I spend the car journey trying to get some focus back, mainly by reminding myself of all the things I have to do today. That's if I get a break from the press calls. I suddenly remember, guiltily, that Sam is presumably still in ICU. Well, at least it's not likely he's dead, as that would have brought on the media onslaught for sure, and no-one's called me.

When I walk in the office, the red light on my phone is already flashing. Pretty soon, I'm dealing with the cracked soil pipe in Planned Investigation and the power failure in the lecture theatres, followed by a long and tedious conversation with a potential donor who probably needs to get out more if he's already thinking about giving away huge sums at eight in the morning.

I've just, finally, managed to get off the phone with him when I remember to check the patient records to see what's going on with Sam. Turns out he's scheduled for emergency surgery – I check my watch – starting five minutes ago. I get up, thinking I'll go up to the OR, but then it strikes me that if I do that there's a strong possibility I'll bump into House. A cold shiver goes through me at the very thought.

I'm hesitating on the threshold, trying to pull myself together, when a male figure approaches the outer door. I jump, but it's only Wilson.

"So, I hear our guitarist is in surgery," he says, conversationally, "I was just going up to take a look; are you coming?"

"No," I tell him, "I'm quite sure House has everything under control. I was just going to…check the power's back on in the lecture hall."

And with that deeply unconvincing lie, I walk off, as briskly as possible, and I'm sure Wilson's staring after me, but I don't care.

Chapter 15: Wilson, by phineyj

Something's up with House this morning. I can see he hasn't slept – none of his team seems to have; I just passed Cameron in the corridor and she looked like she'd stepped out of a heroin screws you up poster. However, if lack of sleep affected House that much normally, we'd all be dead – or he would be – never mind his patients.

He seems abstracted, which is fair enough, considering they still seem to have no idea which immune disease their patient has got; Cameron muttered something about running more tissue tests when I saw her and the whiteboard was covered with ideas from lupus to Wegener's granulomatosis Although, let's face it, with the amount of bowel they've got to take out, getting a correct diagnosis is probably the least of that poor guy's problems right now.

Somehow, I don't think it's the patient's future welfare that's bugging House, though…Oh God. Stacy. He has his Stacy expression on. But I heard from her last week, and as far as I could tell, she had no intention of ever contacting him again. Anyway, if he's been here all night, he can't have seen her, and there's no way he'd have taken a call from her.

I wonder if Cuddy might know what's up? I would really appreciate a heads-up this time if he's going to go postal on me again; I've got so many patients at the moment I can barely keep up as it is, never mind all those interviews I've got to find time to do next week.

I head over to her office – it's on my way up to the OR anyway, and one of my own patients is in surgery this morning, so I figure I can check on House's case at the same time.

---

I watch Cuddy's back as she marches off down the corridor, after claiming she has no interest in Sam's case – the case that was preoccupying her all day yesterday, and which the press keep calling about – and I wonder what on earth's up with everyone today. Did they all get together and smoke crystal meth, and no-one thought to invite me? I try to pin down the expression that was on her face; it wasn't worry exactly; she looked hunted.

Now, why would that be?

_To be continued…_


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 16: House, by snarkbait

I like the sound of the bike when there's no one else on the roads. The idea that I'm waking everyone up as I squeal past their homes amuses me.

No red lights, no Hummers to dice with death over as I cut around them.

Just me, the bike and the roads, coupled with the knowledge that the streets at this time of night are mine.

My mind wanders, which is a dangerous thing on a bike.

I know she'll blame me, somehow. It will be my fault. It always is. She's probably doing it right now.

She'll be taking all of the internal anger that's now eating away at her for doing something stupid and turning it into something else. Trying to find words for it so she can throw it at me, stacking the blame up like chips in a poker game.

And she'll probably win that argument when we have it, because I don't regret anything. My reactions won't be motivated by my own angry self loathing.

Life's far too short to regret having sex with someone like Lisa Cuddy. Even if she is already disappointed in herself, even if she couldn't look at me as I was leaving.

She couldn't possibly take it for what it was.

It's not like we haven't done it before; on more than one occasion, in fact.

I ease off the gas a little; there are no cops around but I can't risk getting another speeding ticket.

It's so easy to do 80 or more when the roads are empty. It's so easy to let the bike race as my mind does.

---

I almost head to the locker rooms to get a shower, but my pager starts off again, so I quickly decide there is no point.

Cameron will hunt me down now I'm in the building, and her finding me in the shower at one in the morning will only raise questions.

I enter the office and wake Chase up. He almost tips out of his chair.

That's it sweetie pie, pull your beautiful hair out of your face and drag your brain back into the office for five minutes, would you.

Cameron starts filling me in on the patient; I'm half listening to her but the other half of my attention is somewhere else completely.

I don't know why - it's ridiculous – but I'm starting to feel guilty. I suddenly feel like I've done something wrong.

Obviously more than just Cuddy's perfume has rubbed off on me tonight.

Christ, I reek of it.

It's on my clothes, on me and embedded in my nostrils.

I move away from Chase and Cameron so the odor clinging to me doesn't put any ideas into their heads.

I open the fridge and instantly spot the dint in my Red Bull stash as I take one out. You can't leave anything in this fucking place without it getting stolen.

Kids.

Well it wasn't Chase, because he looks like he's about to fall asleep again. Cameron doesn't 'do' theft. She'd be far too racked with guilt right now to have a conversation. Or she'd be apologizing and telling me she'll replace them.

Just then, Foreman catapults himself into the office with a nervous energy normally only seen in children who've eaten way too much ice-cream and are running out the sugar rush, before things turn nasty and they upchuck all over mom's Persian rug.

My money is on the ex-car thief.

---

I've not eaten since lunchtime, and I'm almost starting to get hungry, until we watch the laparoscopy.

My appetite is conquered very quickly by the sight of the necrotic bowel Chen needs to remove.

No surprise the kid hasn't been able to stand up for three days.

I still can't shake the idea of some sort of parasite, but the tests brought nothing conclusive back. And even a nasty foreign tapeworm wouldn't have done this much damage.

Unless he had it before; Foreman did say he'd been off his food. I think his illness just put four more people off their food.

If it's not a tapeworm, what the hell else would eat away at his intestines like that?

It can't be any other sort of worm, because the oxygen concentration in that part of the body is too low for it to survive.

Auto-immune seems to be the next best guess, and it is a guess.

I don't like pinning the Coyote's life on a diagnosis that has multiple choices to pick from, when time is of the essence. But we need to head in some direction.

Even the wrong direction will kick up diagnostic dust we can use.

This kid needs surgery now; dangerous or not, he's dead without it.

The lack of argument from Foreman when I push for surgery confirms how bad the kid's chances are now.

It's always bad when we start agreeing with each other.

---

It's just gone seven and the hospital is slowly waking up.

I rub my face tiredly and wonder where the best place to steal a quick nap would be.

And then I think better of it.

I'd be a fool to give Cuddy any sort of an excuse to bitch at me today; she barely needs one, she'll be fortified by her double barreled loathing of me and herself.

I'm too tired to fight with her just yet; she'd either shoot me down quickly for lack of effort, or I'd have to really overstep the mark to shut her up.

Neither of those argumentative strategies appeals, so I think avoidance is the best plan of action today.

I really should shower, considering I haven't yet since screwing Cuddy.

Or is that, since she screwed me?

Like it matters; God I'm tired. I'm not used to physical exercise, of any kind.

I get up from the desk and head into the office; I take another can of Red Bull out of the fridge, and then I make my way to the locker room.

---

The warmth of the water feels good, especially on my leg. It's really feeling sorry for itself today after the slight bit of exercise it had to endure.

It could give me a break, considering I got us laid.

With Cuddy, which isn't just getting laid; it's a whole other thing, if I'm really honest.

I don't regret what we did last night, whatever happens; it was just sex, pretty good fucking sex too, and it's not like either of us are getting any elsewhere.

Regardless of the fact that Cuddy dresses like a 20 year old and likes to use her cleavage as something for people to look at when she's hanging around the clinic, instead of just investing in some bad artwork.

I close my eyes and think back to the last time we I spent the night with her. It's not a comfortable set of images, but I can't stop myself from going to a place I've not been in a long time.

---

I'm slumped on my sofa.

Partly because I don't have the energy to hold myself up, and partly because I don't want to find the energy to hold myself up.

Besides, slumped is an accurate description of how I feel, mind, body and soul.

It went dark about an hour ago, but the lights are still off in my living room.

I've only just realized I've been sitting in the dark since then.

I haven't turned the lights on for over a week.

The glow from the TV that I'm not watching is enough.

It's all I need.

I've barely moved from the sofa in that time either.

Wilson says I'm moping. I wish it were as trivial as that; the reality is, I feel numb.

I feel detached, like I've been suspended above my own life, and forced to watch as a handful of people come in, take over, fuck everything up and then leave me with the fallout.

Moping is dragging your ass about for a few days, because you can't have something you want.

Like wanting a new motorbike and finding out you can't have it, because when you ask your girlfriend, she's afraid you'll kill yourself on it.

So you don't get one, because you love her, and you don't want her to worry about you.

There are a few days of moping to be had there, but it's not life changing.

The monumental shit I've had to put up with over the past month is.

It's not moping if you feel dead inside. I think that's closer to something called clinical depression, Wilson, but thanks for playing.

I couldn't care less what name you call it; just don't call it fucking moping.

I stare at the unopened prescription bottle in front of me on the coffee table, and grit my teeth.

I realize I've started to sweat.

Stacy left over a month ago now, and I don't know if I care or not.

I do and I don't.

I love her and I hate her.

Things have become very black and white since I had the infarction.

My right leg burns, and right now, for some reason, I want it to hurt more.

I stopped taking the pain medication yesterday, so I could feel it; I wanted to know how my leg was going to feel for the rest of my life.

Well I have mind-numbing pain in my right thigh to look forward to - forever.

I'm so lucky to be alive; praise be to fucking Jesus.

My boss chose to come and see me the third night of my 60-hour drinking session.

I woke up the next day and I didn't have a job.

I don't remember what I said to the Dean of Medicine over at Princeton General; I just have the outraged answer message to confirm I did indeed say something.

Fuck him; I was going to leave anyway.

No one wants to be treated by a crippled doctor.

Lisa Cuddy had to offer three times before I accepted a job with her, and that was after Wilson came around and put a few things into perspective.

Like how the fuck was I going to sustain a life NOW if I didn't even have a job.

I think it might be the first time I've ever heard him cuss. I suppose he figured it was the only way to get through to me.

It's the first time I've had a job offer motivated entirely by guilt.

If I had a dollar for every time she's apologized since I came out of the coma, I wouldn't need to take her job.

I accepted thirty minutes ago.

She's still here; she's cooking something in the kitchen and is refusing to leave until she sees me eat something.

Apparently I've lost weight since the infarction. I wouldn't know; I've stopped looking in the mirror.

Part of me wants her gone now, part of me is secretly glad for the distraction. Part of me is aware that she's the only reason the bottle of scotch on the table in front of me is unopened.

I feel sick at the thought of food, but she's almost as stubborn as me, so I think I'm going to have to eat something or she'll never leave.

I start thinking about the time I fucked her in college.

She's come a long way since then; further than I ever thought she would. She was always determined and ambitious - but I never figured she'd make Chief of Medicine well before her 35th birthday.

That's nothing short of incredible.

Cuddy comes into the living room from the kitchen and flicks the lights on.

It makes me squint and I sit up slightly, which sends a sickening jolt of pain along my thigh.

I close my eyes and groan, and just about refrain from grabbing hold of it; that would only make it hurt more, and the feel of the dint that shouldn't be there makes me feel nauseous.

When I open my eyes again, Cuddy has switched the TV off, and placed a bowl of pasta mixed with…something, in front of me.

"Why have you stopped taking your medication?" she says fiercely, looking at the unopened bottle.

"Why are you still here?" I counter.

"You're an idiot," she says, gently, and hands me the pills.

"And you're encouraging your new Head of Diagnostic Medicine to become dependent on opiates; you know how addictive this stuff is," I say distastefully, shaking the bottle.

"I offered you a range of medication, you picked Vicodin," she says, placing a hand on her hip.

I look away from her; she's exhausting.

"Please take one, you look awful," she eventually offers, in a more sympathetic tone. Then she goes over to my record collection and starts flicking through it.

"What are you doing?" I say, shortly.

"Filling the awkward silence until you stop being stubborn and eat something," she replies.

"Don't touch the vinyl," I bitch, as she picks up a rare and expensive Duke Ellington record.

She shakes her head but doesn't say anything until she pulls out another record and holds it up so I can see it.

"How about some Chet Baker? I think you could relate to a heroin-addicted manic depressive right about now," she says, sarcastically.

"You're wasted in medicine; you should take to the stage," I reply, finally relenting on the no-medication rule and popping two pills at once.

I almost reach for the scotch to wash them down with, but I decide against it because I can do without the lecture, so instead I reach for the glass of water she's placed next to the food.

She settles for a CD of Nina Simone. The plodding melody of "My baby just cares for me" drifts out of the speakers.

And it's impossible not to feel slightly lifted by the optimism of the song.

She made me play it to her once in college, when she found out I was a pianist.

I grab the food and sit back carefully. I'm on the far right side of the sofa; she comes and sits down on the far left of it.

"You've not done one for yourself," I say, nodding to the plate in my hands.

"Can't stand your own cooking?" I ask suspiciously, before I try it.

"You've had my cooking before and from what I remember you had no complaints, so you're not getting out of eating with that excuse."

We fall silent whilst I eat. It does taste very good and I eat the whole thing. It's the first meal I've been able to stomach in about a week.

She doesn't speak to me until I place the plate back down on the coffee table.

I notice the Vicodin has kicked in then; maybe I shouldn't have taken two. I'm high as a kite now.

"Wilson's worried about you," Cuddy says.

I glance at her.

"Wilson is emotionally unstable, take no notice," I say; my words are verging on being slurred.

"I need to know you can handle this position; I need you to start next month and I want it to work out, but if you go and lose it on me…"

I frown at her.

"You see, this is what happens when you give people jobs based solely on the fact that you're wracked with guilt for helping to ruin their lives," I say groggily.

"I do not feel guilty I saved your life. I have nothing to feel guilty for," she says stoutly.

"Just because you keep telling yourself that, it won't make you believe it," I reply.

"Are you sure you can handle it?" she says, softly. "I need to know."

I don't answer for a while: I'm a fucking mess, and no, I don't think I can handle going back to the real world in one month. But I have to do it at some point. Two weeks, three weeks, two months… it doesn't matter.

This is how life is now.

"I can handle it," I say, eventually.

She nods her head, then she gets up and takes my plate; she also takes the unopened bottle of scotch and disappears into the kitchen again.

"You're finished, so do you want me to go now?" she asks, when she comes back in.

I shrug like I don't care one way or the other; I've just turned the TV back on, so I pretend I'm engrossed in a baseball game I'm watching. The sound of the game is conflicting annoyingly with Nina, so Cuddy turns the stereo off again.

She comes back to the sofa and stands by it, watching the TV, like she's not quite sure if she's staying or leaving.

She looks at me quickly, and then sits down again.

"Don't you have a date tonight?" I say, not taking my eyes from the TV screen.

"No, what makes you say that?"

"You've got your puppies all puffed up and on show, thought there must be a reason," I explain.

She looks down at her obvious cleavage as I glance at her.

"You shouldn't be looking at my, 'puppies'" she says, slightly annoyed.

"They're kind of hard to miss," I comment.

I doze off before the baseball finishes. Cuddy must have dozed off too, because when she wakes me up, it's late.

"You should go to bed," she says.

I still feel out of it. I really shouldn't have taken two Vicodin after not taking any for a day.

I grab the crutches that are by the side of the sofa and get up; I feel really dizzy, and I sway slightly.

Cuddy is wearing a look of concern when I glance at her.

"Stop looking at me like that," I say.

"Like what?"

"Like a doctor," I finish, and head for the door of the living room.

I can't help but wonder how much more fucked I'd be if Stacy and I had bought a house instead of an apartment.

Sleeping on the sofa, I guess, because there is no way I'd be able to tackle any stairs at the moment.

I get to my bed; by the time I've eased myself down Cuddy is standing in the doorway.

"I'm sorry I'm in too much pain to service you tonight," I say, with as much gusto as I can muster.

It sounds weak.

"You look like crap; I'm worried about you."

"I don't need anyone to worry about me, all right; go home," I say, and drop the crutches by the bed, lie down and close my eyes.

"Turn the lights off on your way out," I tell her.

I hear her go back into the living room and turn the lights out; I can feel sleep welcoming me into its arms. I'm almost away again when I hear the lights click off in my bedroom, and then a few seconds later I feel the bed shift.

"I told you…" I begin, but she cuts me off.

"Shut up and go to sleep. I'm not leaving now just to come all the way back again to see if you're still alive in two hours."

"Oh god, you're so melodramatic. I've taken too much Vicodin; I'll be fine in two hours."

I wish that were true.

We're lying on the top of the covers and I'm too tired to get in; in fact I'm over tired, and I lie for a long time wishing I could get to sleep.

"What's wrong?" she asks, about an hour later.

"How did I know you know I was still awake?"

"I can hear you thinking," she offers softly.

"You crack me up," I slur tiredly.

It doesn't stop me making a bold move and I ease over to her, placing my head on her chest.

She doesn't seem to mind; I can feel her chin rest against the top of my head.

Our breathing falls into a comfortable rhythm and a few minutes later I'm out like a light.

When I wake in the morning, she's gone.

I realize the reason I've been finding it hard to sleep is because it's weird not having someone beside me, after living with Stacy for five years.

I realize something else; things have changed between Cuddy and me, and they'll never be the same again.

Chapter 17: Cuddy, by phineyj

I get halfway to the lecture hall before I realize how completely ridiculous I'm being. So I slept with House. So I wish I hadn't. No amount of wishing's going to undo what we did, and in the meantime I'm wasting time worrying.

I'll go and talk to him at lunchtime, and tell him…okay, I have no idea what I'll tell him, but I've got all morning to work something out.

And I have actual work to do, so I may as well stop behaving like a sixteen year old.

---

I'm thinking about it all the time as I field a pile more press calls, at the same time as trying to look through the budget report the auditor's just sent me, and wondering if I ought to hire a new Head of Communications if we're going to admit any more celebrities. Although, I reflect sadly, the way this one is going, famous people aren't going to be waiting in line for PPTH to treat them.

I ponder the state the guitarist's wife must be in by now, and hope Cameron's looking out for her. It occurs to me that it's been ages since I've allowed myself to have a relationship. I expected to have to work extremely hard when I took the post here, but I suppose at the back of my mind, I thought I might reach a point where it was all going smoothly enough that I could actually take the occasional evening off.

It does seem though, that there are no men who want a partner on that sort of basis; it's a double standard; I can't help but notice that all my married friends spend a significant amount of their 'free' time hosting dinner parties, going to tedious work functions and generally helping their other half's career along, whether or not they're successful themselves.

Realistically, who outside of medicine is going to understand that you can genuinely have a crisis is a large teaching hospital several times a week, in the middle of the night? And even if they do understand, what's to say they won't end up consoling themselves elsewhere? I don't have the numbers on the divorce rate among my staff here, but Wilson's hardly an isolated example.

I briefly miss Stacy, because stressful as it was when she was here, she got this sort of stuff and I could discuss it with her without feeling like I was being weak in some way.

But then, I remember how angry I was with her after she left House. From his infarction right up until that point, I felt we'd done something necessary, if morally unpleasant, but at least it was something we'd both done. Seeing the state he was in when she'd gone made me realize that I was never going to be able to walk away. I didn't want to. Wilson and I were the only ones he'd talk to, because we were the only ones who would put up with his crap.

Chapter 17: House, by snarkbait

My appetite doesn't surface until lunchtime.

Chen is still in surgery, Chase is assisting, Cameron is doing some form of hand holding and Foreman is…actually I have no idea what he's doing.

I grab a Reuben and sit outside whilst I wait for it to go cold.

I figure the air might wake me up; I've felt fuzzy and not with it all day.

It doesn't do much to clear my head.

I'm just about to open up my sandwich when my appetite is cruelly stolen again; Cuddy is heading over to me with a determined look in her eyes, as if she's had to psych herself up to march over here.

Her heels click loudly on the courtyard paving; my eyes roll up to observe her as she comes to a halt by my side and places her hands on her hips

"How's the patient?" she asks.

"You don't have to talk in code, you didn't injure you know who," I say, nodding at my groin. "He did enjoy himself though," I continue.

Mistake.

She makes a sound close to something horses make when they're breathing out through their nostrils.

I look away quickly, so I'm not sure, but I think she might have just blushed.

"Could you please act like a grown man for five minutes? I've got the British press hounding me, and Rolling Stone the magazine, not the website want an update, because they're going to do a story," she snaps.

"Cuddy, I couldn't give a crap who's calling: the kid's in surgery, we don't know why his bowel is rotting inside of him, and last time I checked he was pretty close to death. Now you can tell Rolling Stone that, or tell them to bite your ass, it's your call."

I open up my sandwich.

"We need to talk," she says, suddenly very quiet.

"No, we don't," I reply.

All she had to do was stay away from me for one week; it would be awkward the week after when she started bitching at me again, but we'd both be absolutely determined to pretend 'IT' hadn't happened.

And life would be normal again.

Talking suggests we're not going to pretend it didn't happen.

"I'm not going to indulge you in your self loathing; if you feel bad about sleeping with the jerk you work with, why not go grab a tub of frozen yoghurt and eat yourself out of your reverie, like every other woman on the planet does," I suggest, pointing inside the cafeteria with my cane.

I finally find the courage to look up and meet the anger, but she doesn't look angry, she just looks tired.

"I want a complete update in one hour; get it done," she says and then heads away.

Chapter 17: Cuddy, by phineyj

It's nearly midday. I decide I'm going to find House right now. I want a patient update, and talking to him isn't going to get any more pleasant if I leave it until I bump into him accidentally.

I'm not as angry as I was last night when he brought David's file round. I'm not that upset any more, either. Now I've got over the shock of being confronted with it, I actually feel kind of…relieved that I've talked to someone about it. None of my family will speak about my brother; I know they haven't forgotten him, but it suddenly seems important to me that I don't let him fade any more in my mind. I decide I'm going to look at the file again later; try to see it with a doctor's eye.

House isn't in his office, he's not watching the surgery, and he's not with Wilson either. Finally, I find him in the cafeteria. He doesn't notice me until I'm a few steps away from him; he's glaring down at his sandwich as though it's just dared to contradict his diagnosis, and I'm shocked by how tired and old he looks.

It's back to business as usual; the sexual comments, I get angry with him, he gets aggressive back. I can't believe he just accused _me_ of self loathing, when it's coming off him in waves. He clearly wants to pretend last night never happened. Which is pretty convenient, all things considered.

So why do I feel disappointed?

Chapter 18: Chase, by phineyj

I'm getting really sick of House looking at me like I'm taking up precious space he could use for something else, like a new set of table football. He makes no secret of the fact he's got absolutely no respect for me. Well, fair enough, he's got no respect for anyone, but I can't seem to do anything right lately.

The surgery's going reasonably well, considering: Chen's taken out nearly ten feet of the diseased bowel. I can see why House was so insistent we used him; I would have panicked and taken the whole lot out, given the state of it, but Chen's looking over every inch, saving every bit of tissue he can.

It's taking a long time, though; Sam's stats keep dropping and his chances of surviving this operation are getting worse and worse. And that's before he even gets to the possibility of recovering, which to be perfectly straight, is unlikely.

I consider briefly for a moment whether I'd actually want to come round to hideous abdominal pain and a good chance of abscesses and septicemia, just so I could face a life on artificial nutritition, or if I'd prefer to die right here on the table.

Chen looks up at me and nods, tensely, "I'm going to close," he says, and continues, "I may have to go back in tomorrow, but I'm not risking anything more today; he's too weak."

I look up at Cameron, where she's sitting in the observation gallery with Sam's wife, and give them the thumbs up. After all, it's gone better than anyone could have expected on the basis of the laparoscopy. The poor wife is a wreck. It's a shame they're so far from home.

While Chen closes, I go to wash up, because House has just appeared at Cameron's shoulder, paged by her, no doubt, and he's going to want a report.

I'm thinking over what I've been looking at for the last four hours. What kind of auto-immune disease causes this sort of damage?

---

Which, of course, is exactly what House is asking when I walk through the door into Diagnostics.

"Cuddy wants an update in half an hour," he says, "Shoot."

Foreman's been researching auto-immune diseases the whole time I've been in surgery, and Cameron's just run up to the lab to collect the results from the tissue tests she ran first thing this morning.

"My money's on one of the vascultic syndromes," she says, breathlessly, "He's positive for ANCAs, and we know there's extensive vessel damage."

"Cameron, it's always a pleasure to take your money," House replies, writing 'ANCA-present vasculitis' on the board.

"Any particular sort?" he asks.

"Could be Wegener's; could be Churg-Strauss; test for GBM was negative which rules out Goodpasture's, but it could still be Microscopic polyangitis, which would explain the anemia," she offers.

"Or it's much more likely to be lupus," I say, "The incidence of Wegener's is only about eight cases a million; Churg-Strauss is even rarer; about one per million, and not a single one of the US cases settled around the small intestine."

House looks at me in undisguised amazement, and I'm glad I skimmed that article of my dad's last night while we were waiting for him to get back to the hospital.

"But there aren't any dermatological manifestations, and no cardiac problems, either," puts in Foreman, frowning, "I say it's Guillain-Barré."

House looks over at him, "I'm interested to know how you plan to prove he's paralyzed, while he's in a coma," he states, sardonically.

"Don't need to," says Foreman, firmly, "It'll be what caused the respiratory failure, the constipation; it's associated with recent trauma and viral infections…it fits perfectly."

House is nodding, but then he says, "Seems simple enough. We've only got one tiny problem then, haven't we? If it's Guillain-Barré, the steroids we're giving him'll probably kill him; if it's one of the others, he's dead without them."

_To be continued…_


	7. Chapter 7

Authors' note: This chapter contains mature content, adults only please.

System Failure

Chapter 19: House, by snarkbait

"It's not Guillain-Barré," I say confidently.

"Why not?" Foreman counters.

I blow out some air and look into the middle distance.

"I can just feel it in my water."

Foreman tilts his head and raises one of his eyebrows, adopting one of his many 'That don't impress me much' stances.

He probably choreographs for Shania Twain in his spare time.

"Or…" I continue, holding my finger up then pointing it at Foreman.

"…Maybe I can remember what the kid's initial symptoms were when he got sick; tingling in his toes and fingers was not on the list."

"You're right; if only the first symptom had been some sort of respiratory problem," Foreman says sarcastically, shaking his head to sell it.

He then points back at me.

"Wait a minute; he did complain of chest pains first. Meaning it could just be a parasite doing the bowel damage and Guillain-Barré is doing everything else."

Cheeky little shit. I'll do the sarcasm. Guillain-Barré is a bad diagnosis.

"This isn't 'just' anything. Whatever it is, it's declaring holy war on his digestive system. A good parasite does not kill its host."

"We should take him off the steroids," Foreman says strongly, ignoring my objections.

I hate it when he ignores me. Now I have to get his attention.

"Okay, but when you say take him off the steroids let's be clear that what you really mean is, let's end his life. So you're suggesting diagnosis by death here; it's original, I'll give you that. Who wants to try Foreman's idea?" I say to Chase and Cameron as I raise my hand.

I look from one to the next but they stay silent. They suddenly seem very comfortable about not getting involved.

Wimps.

"If it is Guillain-Barré, not taking him off the steroids could kill him," Foreman says to them.

"Chen just removed half of his bowel; after that sort of surgery his body won't be able to handle the shock if we're wrong," Cameron says to Foreman.

Way to get involved Cam, and she's on my side. Shock horror, it's like the good old days.

"Don't do anything until he comes around from the surgery," I say to Foreman.

"Chen has advised we keep him out for at least three days, to aid recovery," Chase informs me.

"Keep him on the steroids, and monitor any changes. There is nothing more we can do until we can assess how he's feeling now the dead bowel is no longer such an integral part of him. We'll know one way or another on Monday if the steroids are helping him or not."

"How?" Foreman says.

"Because he won't be alive on Monday if it's Guillain-Barré, but if you yank him off the steroids today and you're wrong, he won't make it to the evening repeat of General Hospital tonight."

Foreman finally shuts up.

"And by repeat I mean, the one I Tivo'd, and the one I'm going home to watch right now. Hands off him Foreman, let him recover, keep me informed," I say and start putting my things into my backpack.

---

The kids are going to take shifts over the weekend and call me if there is any change in the Coyote's condition.

His temperature was down a few degrees and he was stable when I left. At least he's not getting any worse.

Foreman had his nose buried in a gargantuan medical dictionary when I went. He was still fighting Guillain-Barré's corner so I told him if he was so sure, he needed to find me the parasite that was eating the kid's intestines.

Stubborn idiot; he must be taking the first shift. If it was the other way around and I was as sure as Foreman, I'd just go ahead and take the kid off the steroids anyway.

Foreman lacks conviction in his beliefs. This is good news for the Coyote.

I'm watching a fairly stale game of baseball when the inevitable knock comes.

I glance at my watch; it's seven forty-five.

I know it's Cuddy, because she's incapable of just leaving things alone. Unfortunately for her, talking about what happened isn't going to reverse time and prevent it.

I pull the door open and Cuddy is standing on the step. A gentle breeze blows some of her hair into her face and she quickly pulls it out of her eyes.

We remain silent for a few moments then I head silently back into the living room, leaving the door and her options open.

If there is something she needs to get off her chest – preferably her bra, but I don't think that's why she's here – then it may as well be now.

I don't want this thing stretching out for longer than it needs to.

It takes her a few moments but she follows me in. She takes a look around the room; I don't think she's been to this apartment yet.

I moved at the start of the year; I told Wilson I needed somewhere I could park the bike close by. In reality I needed a place with fewer steps when the elevator at my last place became treacherously unpredictable.

The living room is a mess but I could care less. I can't imagine she'd expect anything more from me.

I could have kept Wilson's cleaner on I suppose, but it frustrated the crap out of me when she moved all my stuff around so I couldn't find anything.

My mess is an organized one; I know where everything I need is.

"Didn't think you did house calls these days, Cuddy," I say lightly.

Then I realize the double meaning of what I said, and marvel at how our conversations turn to innuendo when I'm not even trying.

"I wanted to talk to you," she says quietly.

She looks drained, looks like someone who's been juggling too much for too long and has finally had to let everything drop.

"There's not a lot to say about…" I begin, but she cuts me off.

"I don't want to talk about - that. I just want to talk…"

It's then I notice she has her brother's file in her hand.

"…to someone," she finishes, unable to look at me.

I look at the file and then at her, realizing that she's been wearing pale like a cosmetic product for the past few days.

"Sit down," I say, offering her a spot on the sofa with a quick gesture of my hand.

"Want a beer?" I ask. I sure need one.

She breathes out loudly and nods, as if it's a really big decision.

"Why not," she replies.

I nod and go and collect two beers from the fridge.

I really could do without this tonight; I'm exhausted and her guilt is far less interesting now that I know where it's coming from.

That part of the puzzle is solved. It's up to Cuddy to either do something about the way she feels or continue to let it guide all of the important decisions in her life. What it isn't – is my problem.

But then, looking at her sitting on my sofa, I realize she must be in a really shitty place to come here on a Friday night.

Searching for some sort of conversation about the one thing she hasn't spoken to anyone about for a very long time.

I limp back in, not really sure what to expect. I'm clutching both of the bottles in my left hand.

I place one in front of her on my coffee table and then ease myself down onto the sofa beside her. I glance over but she doesn't look back at me.

She looks lost. I wonder how much of this is my fault? Annoying Cuddy is fun, antagonizing her and baiting her is too.

Seeing her quiet and despondent makes me realize there was a line to cross when it came to how far I could push her, and I should have known where it was.

Too late to worry about it now; it's done, and she does need to face up to this.

I did her a favor really.

Neither of us says anything, so we watch the baseball game.

How can Cuddy's life be so empty of real friends she has to come to me for this discussion?

We watch the game for about thirty minutes before she says anything.

"Why do you do it?" she says, distantly.

I glance at her with my half empty beer poised on my lips

"What?" I say, before taking a swig.

"Keep digging for buried information where you have no right or invitation to dig," she says, as her thumb slowly circles the top of her beer bottle.

I've pulled off half the label on mine; I brush the tattered debris of the Bud logo from my jeans onto the floor.

"Because it's the only information worth digging for," I offer, raising my eyebrows.

She shoots me a quick look then stares at her beer again.

"People normally dig around in other people's lives because they're worried about their friends or relatives and they want to make sure they're okay. You do it purely for selfish reasons."

I snort, loudly so she can hear.

"Which people, Cuddy? Everyone does it for a selfish reason; they just dress it up so it's masquerading as care and concern. People need to know the inner workings of their friends' and relatives' lives so they can control them better," I say then drain the rest of my beer.

"So cynical, so you," she says bitterly, and takes a swig of her own drink.

"No not cynical, just fact. Sugar coating crap does not make crap taste nice - it's still crap - so tell it like it is. You don't like people knowing anything about you because you have

to be able to control every aspect of your world, or you think it will fall apart," I observe.

"You're right, I should just wear my heart on my sleeve like you," she counters sarcastically.

I continue to say my piece, undeterred by her snipe because her game is weak.

"The more people know about you, the less fake you can be, and the less bullshit you can project."

She gives me a quick angry look and then falls silent; we're running around in circles. It's all we ever do, as if agreeing with each other would physically hurt us both.

"People should keep their noses out and let other people do what the hell they want but it never works that way. Why should I play by the rules when no one else does?" I ask.

"Because you use the information to hurt people," she says strongly.

"Oh dear, I've hurt you by bringing this up, I'm sorry," I say mockingly.

"No you're not," she replies.

"No I'm not; you see, sugar coating shit does not work. You need to deal with this Cuddy," I say, pointing at the file she's placed on the coffee table.

"I want to know why someone as successful as you could be so entirely controlled by such an irrational motivation," I say.

"You know, you're right, being motivated by egotistical belief in oneself and obsession is far healthier," she says darkly.

"At least I'm consistent," I offer with a shrug.

Cuddy shakes her head slowly. "You know, some people think guilt helps them to realize they're human and accountable for their actions," she says.

"Stupid, weak people; you're neither," I counter.

She shakes her head again, as if I'm a frustrating little boy who won't do as he's told. But what does she expect from me? She's come to the wrong place if she wanted 'touchy feely'.

I don't know why she came here; she probably doesn't know either.

She gets up and places her half drunken beer on the table.

"This was a mistake," she says and she goes to leave.

I get up and somehow make it to the living room door before she does.

"Don't bury this again, deal with it," I say, putting an end to her moody retreat.

She laughs humorlessly.

"Oh god, can you hear yourself?" she asks loudly, "Be an ass, be a jerk, and believe everything that comes out of your mouth, House, but don't be a hypocritical bastard when you've brought this on me, to sate your own intrusive obsessions."

"Yes, this is all about me," I offer.

"You can't deal with your leg, and you've made yourself progressively more miserable for five years, yet I shouldn't bury my feelings. Who the hell are you to tell me that?" she questions angrily.

"I don't blame myself for something I had no control over. In fact, I'm the one person I don't blame for this," I say, pointing at my leg.

It comes out stronger than I wanted it to sound; I'm not trying to suggest I blame her, it just sounds that way and she looks at the floor.

She can't seem to be emotional without anger being wrapped in somewhere.

I don't regret pushing this onto her; sometimes people need to be pushed.

I reach out and place my hand on her cheek. She closes her eyes.

Probably wishing that I were someone else.

I lean over and place my other hand in the collection of soft curls at the back of her head and pull her into a slow kiss.

It's almost rhythmic, and I was right yesterday when I realized I missed the sensation of kissing Lisa Cuddy.

It's not as innocent as it used to be, it's still soft and patient, but it is also slightly dangerous. Because the moment it stops we're the same people.

And she is angry and upset and she's supposed to hate me, and I'm supposed to hate her and we're supposed to take pot shots at each other until the other one retreats until they can think of something nastier to say.

We're not supposed to be ending arguments like this.

We break away and I'm finding it hard to want to choose words that might annoy her or…hurt her.

I know I'd rather we said nothing at all and do what we usually do when things get to this point.

Ignore them.

We're at an exhausted, emotional stalemate.

But as much as I would love to get another feel of that perfect behind of hers again, I know she's not herself at the moment, and she'd only hate herself even more if I encourage her into my bed tonight.

"We can't keep ending arguments this way," I say, pulling away.

"No, we can't," she says, unsurely - and then moves to kiss me again.

I stop her. "You'll only hate yourself again tomorrow," I say.

"I don't hate myself," she says, wiping her lip softly, the way she does when she's thinking deeply about something.

It makes me want to kiss her again, but I don't. This is a bad idea. Once every now and again is fine, it's two lonely people getting a release.

Doing it two days in a row, whilst she's so tangled in this tumult of unresolved feelings…

Is a dangerous thing.

Neither of us can afford for the relationship we have between us to change.

It works this way and we need it to work.

I need it to stay the same.

I can't afford to care for this woman.

She moves in and kisses me again, standing flush against my body; both of her hands are on my chest and my treacherous arms wrap themselves around her waist.

One of my hands dares to slide slowly along the fabric of her skirt and comes to a rest on the smooth curvature of her ass.

Why the fuck are we doing this again? Because it feels really good, is the helpful answer from my mind. I can't argue with logic like that.

The kiss breaks off; I can taste her lipstick smudged against my lips.

Something in her eyes says she needs this more than last night, suggests she won't regret it, because – despite herself – she enjoys this too.

---

My shirt hits the bedroom floor before I'm even in the bedroom.

It's dark but neither of us turns on the light.

She's reaching for the zipper on my jeans as I back her towards my bed but I stop her.

This is my place; we're going to do this my way.

She might get what she wants most of the time but she's not calling the shots now.

I push her down gently onto my bed. She swallows nervously and I can just make out the action in the light of the moon.

I stand in front of her, slide my hand behind her head and then lean in and kiss her a little more aggressively.

Then I ease myself down onto my knees in front of her.

I need to get this right, because I've got about ten minutes before my leg seizes up.

I slide my hands optimistically along her thighs and under her skirt.

The fabric hitches and ripples as my hands travel underneath it.

When I bring them back down, I have hold of her underwear, I steal it over her knees down to her ankles then over her bare feet, and then I toss it away.

I don't know where her shoes went.

I lift her skirt up further and she takes it from me. I place my tongue on her inner thigh and then gently lick along the length of it.

She lets go of some of the air she's been holding in since I kissed her.

My arms are resting either side of her on the bed.

I hear a rustling sound, and feel a gentle movement above me; I think she's taking off her blouse.

My tongue finds the coarse hair in between her legs and then I'm at her entrance and I invite myself in, I start to run my tongue up and down and I hold on to her hips as she starts to move with me.

I suck her clit and her left leg twitches beside my face, and then I feel one of her hands become buried in my hair, as I continue to run the length of my tongue up and down the sensitive folds of her entry.

She's not making much noise, which is unusual for Cuddy.

I need to fix that.

My tongue slides back out and I suck my index finger quickly then slide it in. I begin to apply some pressure to her most sensitive of areas as it continues what my tongue started and I get a chance to catch my breath.

I look up at her; she's lying flat against the bed.

She's naked from the waist up and her left arm is draped over her eyes, a slight moan creeps out of her as I slide my finger in and out.

I'm starting to get hard but I'm going to have to finish this manually, I don't think she'd appreciate me stopping now to take off my jeans, get myself harder and put on a condom.

I slide my finger out and put my tongue back in, moving it in and out, trying to make her come.

And my mind poses a strange question to me as the taste of her changes in the back of my throat and my tongue begins to ache.

Why is it we're only ever gentle with each other when we're doing this?

She comes before I can work out the answer.

When I feel the muscles inside relax, my tired tongue retreats and I pull myself up and flop down on the bed beside her while she gets her breath back.

A few moments later I feel the bed move and I watch as she stands and takes off her skirt.

She places her hand on the lump in my jeans and begins to rub her hand slowly against my groin. I close my eyes as her fingers yank down the zipper.

I don't stop her this time; instead I sit up and begin to give her erect nipples some attention. I roll my thumbs over them gently, then take one in my mouth and suck on it softly.

I ease my ass up slightly so she can yank my jeans down to my knees.

Then she palms my erection through my boxers and I lie back on the bed again as a light groan catches in my throat.

Next I feel her tugging at the waistband of my boxers. And then she has me in her hand, semi hard.

She jerks me off - slowly at first, stopping every now and then to lick the head of my cock, and then carrying on again.

I start to get harder and her other hand begins to stroke my balls, it feels wonderful and I close my eyes.

I feel the pain in my leg turn down to the minimum setting as the endorphins move from my brain all over my body

When I'm hard enough she starts sucking me. The pressure behind my balls starts to build and I start thrusting more, encouraging her to swallow me down. Which she dutifully does.

My hands are in her hair as I sit up slightly and thrust into her mouth.

It doesn't take long; it never does when she does this to me.

I feel warm and weak afterwards and flop back down on the bed.

When I have the strength I pull my boxers off and drop them on the floor. I move up and put my head onto a pillow as I climb into bed, dead beat.

She stands by the bed, looking at me.

"Are you staying?" I ask, tiredly.

She thinks about the question.

"Do you want me to?" she asks back; her voice sounds sore.

"Yeah," I reply.

She still isn't sure; she stands for a few moments more, then she moves slowly around to the other side of the bed and climbs in next to me.

I lift my arm up and she places her head on my chest. And I wrap my arm around her shoulders.

I have a handful of her hair in my hands, and I like the way it feels between my fingers as my mind wanders away from this room.

She doesn't say anything to me; I think we're both content to let the silence set in.

Ten minutes later I notice the rate of her breathing deepen and I know she's fallen asleep.

I place my chin on top of her head; I can smell the conditioner in her hair. Something peach I think.

I start to go through the various types of intestinal parasites alphabetically.

I hold on to her for an hour or so while I think about the case.

Nothing fits.

I really hope she doesn't regret this in the morning.

Chapter 19: Cuddy, by phineyj

House comes by my office to give me an update on Sam's condition. I agree with what he proposes to do, or rather, not do. He says he's going home, and I just nod, because I don't have the energy to argue with him, and anyway, he looks like he could use some sleep.

When he's gone, I lock the door, clear my calendar for the rest of the afternoon and tell my secretary to hold my calls. And as the sun moves westwards and the motes of light falling between the half-closed blinds grow longer and more golden, I read the whole of David's file; every note, every test, every film, finishing up with the death certificate I

couldn't look at last night.

It was bad luck, that was all. Bad luck that he got ill; worse luck that my dad lost his job. Just one of those things that I was the one with him when there would have still been time to save him, if we'd known what to do. It happens to people every day; I think of all the people in the world who are dying unnecessarily at this moment, a few probably right here at PPTH.

The sheaf of papers blurs in front of my eyes and I realize I'm crying again. It's the second time in less than twenty four hours, and it hurts even more than it did yesterday. Oh, curse House for digging all this up. I learned very early on in my career that emotion like this in the workplace is a weakness; one no successful woman can afford. You have to give as good as you get, you have to be better prepared than anyone, and most of all, you can't let your feelings get the upper hand. And I think about another time when they did.

---

David's funeral is on Wednesday. My parents aren't particularly religious, but my aunt and uncle are, and so given the fact my mom can hardly string a sentence together and my dad's walking round like a sleepwalker, they get to call the shots.

I'm listening to the rabbi talk about my brother, haltingly, because he didn't really know him, and I'm looking at Ruth and Rachel in their matching black dresses. They were so excited about when they got them last month, because they thought they were grown up, even though they're all of ten years old. Now they're not going to want to wear them again.

Jenny's sitting on my dad's lap, sucking her thumb, which is something she hasn't done for ages. I suddenly feel fiercely envious of all of them; of the twins and my parents, because they have each other, and of Jenny, because she's still little enough that she can snuggle up to my dad, and cry, and she'll be comforted.

It's only then that it dawns on me that this is what it's going to be like now. I've always been the one who looks after the others and I've never minded, but my brother's always been there to ask for help. I don't want to be the oldest. I haven't cried since we left the hospital; I couldn't; the whole situation felt unreal. But now I realize I'm alone, and always will be and something rises up inside of me, like a torrent I can't control.

I'm howling, Jenny joins in and the rabbi clears his throat in an embarrassed way. My aunt springs to her feet and takes me outside into the dark, musty-smelling lobby, and as she takes out a clean tissue and passes it to me, she says, "Lisa, remember you're a big girl now." The disappointed way she says it makes it clear it's more of a hope than a statement.

---

I wait until it's past seven, when the hallways have started to empty and it's more likely I can get out to my car without talking to anyone. I can't face my colleagues feeling like this. And then I sit behind the wheel trying to convince myself I want to go home, but I really, really don't. So I drive aimlessly around Princeton, but it turns out it's not so aimless after all when I find myself parking outside House's place.

I need to talk to someone. The list of people I can talk to about important things is pretty short, these days, and right now it's down to one person. House.

He doesn't look too pleased to see me. I'm not surprised, really. He lets me in: we snipe at each other, we drink beer, we argue about whether what he did was selfish or not. It's business as usual. I think he's feeling a bit guilty, to be perfectly truthful. He's certainly on the defensive. And if I felt more like myself, I'd make use of that, but I can't bring myself to take him on right now.

Besides, as usual, he's right. I do want to deal with this, even if I didn't really want it shoved in my face at a time not of my choosing. We end up arguing about his leg; it always comes back to that. He's never really forgiven me. It's a shame, because we were friends, before, as well as occasional lovers, and neither of us makes friends very easily. We both enjoy the company of people we do things with. But I don't have time for anything much outside of work these days, and he can't do sports any more. I know all his friends before Wilson were people he played lacrosse with or went running with; they all drifted away after the infarction.

I'm just wondering whether to call it a night when he kisses me, and I realize in a sudden flood of painful emotion just why this whole thing has thrown me for a loop. It's not just David; it's David combined with having to deal with how I feel about Greg. I haven't even let myself call him that for so long; second names made it a little easier after the

surgery; they gave us some measure of professional distance.

When he goes down on me, at first I'm not really responding, because my mind is too full of other things, not least the worry over how exactly we've managed to fall into bed together for the second time in as many days. But he's not an easy man to ignore, and at length the feel of his tongue on me and his insistent fingers in me drags me back into the moment. And I realize I really need this; this temporary reprieve from responsibility and consequences, and the general fucked-up nature of the world.

When I've come back down I'm very conscious that I'm half dressed, and bone tired, and slightly drunk from the beer I had before, but the expression in Greg's eyes pulls me up short. He looks a little lost, like he broke me and doesn't know how to fix me, and I think ruefully that I'm probably lucky he opened the door to me tonight at all.

So I get him off, because it seems only fair, and afterwards, I'm all set to go home, because I'm sure he's going to want to forget about this as quickly as he did before. But he surprises me by asking me to stay. And right at that moment, I can't muster the strength to question his motivations, so I do.

He smells like he always did; a mixture of soap and worn-out cotton and something else indefinably Greg, and it's a relief that this at least has stayed the same when so much else has changed. As I drift off to sleep, conscious that he's still wide awake and worrying over something, I realize we didn't really talk, but I feel better anyway. Greg House is not the world's cuddliest person, but right now, his scratchy, diffident embrace is exactly what I need.

---

I half wake up because he's muttering something about whipworm under his breath.

"What?"

"Nothing…just thinking about intestinal parasites," he says, matter-of-factly.

"Oh. That's…very you," I close my eyes again.

"Cuddy?" he says, after a moment.

"What?"

"Why does Sam remind you of David?"

I wake up properly and prop myself up on one elbow.

"He looks a bit like him. And David played the guitar."

He considers this for a moment, but says nothing.

"House?" There's something I need to know.

"What?"

"Is Sam going to die?" I know it's a stupid question, but all he says is,

"Not if I can help it."

And we both go to sleep.

_To be continued..._


	8. Chapter 8

**System Failure**

Chapter 20: Foreman

I am so determined to prove House wrong that I spend the rest of the afternoon reading my way through all the reference material on auto-immune diseases and intestinal parasites we have in the office, moving on to the internet to do some detailed research to back up my Guillain-Barré diagnosis. Unfortunately, the more I read, the more I think that House is probably right. The symptoms aren't a great match for Guillain-Barré, and none of the intestinal parasites could do such extensive damage this quickly.

Still, there's the whole weekend to go. Perhaps something will turn up. As I read, Chase wanders off. He says he's going to Peds, and it's only after he's left I realize he hasn't said why. I reckon he fancies his chances with the new nurse who started there this week. She's blonde, pretty, and has an infectious laugh. Thing is, she's a friend of a friend, and so I know she bats for the other team. But I don't think I'm going to tell Chase that.

Cameron is working away on her laptop, making a spreadsheet of all Sam's test results since he was admitted, to see if she can spot anything we've missed. Around six o'clock, she disappears for fifteen minutes, and when she returns, although she's still wearing the same clothes, she's taken her hair out of its tight ponytail so it's loose round her shoulders, applied some eye makeup, and it smells like she's wearing perfume. Interesting.

"Foreman, you don't mind if I go, do you?" she asks, as she puts her laptop back into its case and tidies up her desk.

I shake my head. She's supposed to have gone by now, anyway; my shift officially started at five.

"Okay, good," she says, "I'll see you tomorrow at noon then," and with that, she leaves.

I've never known her to have plans on a Friday night before. I go out onto House's balcony and watch her as she leaves the hospital, but instead of going down into the parking lot, she emerges from the main entrance, where she waits, checking her watch.

After a few minutes, a shiny black Mercedes pulls up and she gets in, and as it drives away, I can just make out Nick Chen, the surgeon, behind the wheel.

Chapter 21: Wilson

This is officially a crappy end to a crappy week. I've lost three patients in as many days, and I'm currently in ICU psyching myself up to tell the parents of Carly Petersen, the teenager who was operated on this morning, that she's unlikely to survive the night. 

I walk slowly down the corridor as I rehearse my well-worn litany of comforting phrases – and as I do so, I catch sight of the spiky blonde head of the guitarist's wife, bent over a magazine she's obviously not reading, because it's resting on her lap upside down. I don't make eye contact, but she looks up at the sound of my footsteps, gets wearily to her feet and comes out to the corridor.

She's quite a tall woman – nearly as tall as me, and she's slim, and even in worn-out jeans and a pink t-shirt that could use a wash, she's got an air of authority about her before she even opens her mouth. I would guess she's used to giving orders and having them obeyed. I am reminded of Cuddy of all people, although this woman couldn't be more different from her in appearance.

I don't want to talk to her – God knows, I've had conversations with more than my fair share of traumatized relatives this week, and her husband's not even my patient. But she's standing right there in front of me, so I can hardly walk on past her.

"I'm Cathy, Sam Bedford's wife. You know Dr House, right?" she says.

"Yes, I have that dubious privilege," I say, warily, wondering what I'm going to have to apologize for now.

"Can I ask you a question?" she continues.

I feel like saying, 'you just did', but it's mean to be sarcastic to people who haven't slept properly in days, so I nod.

"Is he good? The thing is, I can't tell. I don't know anything about your system here. And he has no beside manner and I couldn't understand what he was on about, the only time he spoke to me. I mean, Dr Cameron says he's the best, but I get the impression she would say anything she thought would cheer me up." She pauses, looking embarrassed, and adds, "Sorry, I'm babbling."

"It's okay," I say, reassuringly. There's no way I can talk to Mr and Mrs Petersen now; I've lost my carefully cultivated gravitas, so I say, "Listen, I was just going to get a cup of coffee; can I get you one?"

Cathy glances over at her husband, who is lying there hooked up to wires and gently-bleeping monitors, as still and pale as a corpse, and says, "I'll come with you if that's okay. I feel like I'm going to get a blood clot from all this sitting around. But I can't just leave him here, can I?"

I buy two coffees from the machine down the hallway, and we sit in the row of chairs beside it to drink them. Against my will – because I feel like if I try to empathize with one more person today, I might just have to drive too fast out of Princeton and never come back – I ask, "Do you have anyone who can come out here and be with you?" 

She shakes her head, and says, "Sam's mum has M.S. and she can't travel, and his dad won't come here without her. I've been ringing them every night though."

"Where are you from in England?" I ask.

"Surrey," she says, and looks at me for a reaction, which I don't have, because to be honest I have no idea where that is.

"That's one of the best things about America," she says, with a faint smile. "I don't have to apologize for being from Surrey. As far as Sam's band mates are concerned, I might as well be from the moon. Do you know, I've shared a tour bus with those guys for weeks on end, and they still refer to me as 'Sam's bird' whenever they think he's not in earshot?"

I imagine they are probably jealous, but I don't say so. As I drain my coffee, she asks, sounding strained again, "So, the famous Dr House…am I safe to be trusting Sam to him, or what?"

I look her in the eye.

"Dr Cameron's right, he's the best there is," I tell her. "He doesn't give up. If there's any way to figure out what's wrong with your husband, he will. I know he's a bit lacking in the people skills department, but if anyone can work this out, it'll be him. He may not be here, but he'll be examining every possible angle on this, looking for leads and making sure his team takes care of Sam in the meantime."

"You make him sound like a detective," she says, and to my relief she does look somewhat reassured.

"Is that how you work?" she asks, and I shake my head.

"I'm an oncologist," I explain. "I nearly always know what's wrong with my patients; that's not the hard bit. And if you'll excuse me, I'm meant to be on my way to see one of them now."

She nods. "Thanks," she says, softly, and goes back into her husband's room.

---

My new apartment still doesn't feel like home in the slightest, and despite the fact I feel dog tired, I don't want to go there. I think over my options. I could stay longer at the hospital, try and reduce my towering pile of paperwork a little. But I know Mr and Mrs Petersen's faces are going to haunt me, and I won't be able to resist going back up there to check on Carly.

Or, I could find a bar and drink until I bludgeon my mind into neutral and I'm just fit to get a cab home and pass out. Great, that sounds like a mature plan; I'm sure the oh-so-tastefully-greige furnishings of the apartment are going to look much better through a pounding hangover. Alternatively, I could drop by House's and see what he's doing. He's probably watching the game while mulling over his case, but at least he'll have beer and there's no chance he'll ask me how my day was. It's definitely the best of the sucky options open to me this evening.

But, when I get to his place, suddenly I don't think I am going to be spending the evening with House, after all, because that's Cuddy's red BMW in the road outside. I don't want to jump to any conclusions...but then, that's actually a total lie, and...Hell yeah I want to jump to conclusions, and I'm going to. Because House never gives me the benefit of the doubt.

So I drive home, alternating between feeling pleased for them and a sensation of complete trepidation about the circumstances which can possibly have brought this about. Surely this can't end well…can it?

Chapter 22: Cameron

Chen's not House, that's for sure. He's clever, but as he asks me about where I trained, and what it's like working here in Princeton, and as I tell him about some of the cases we've had, I start to feel quite clever too. I suddenly realize how much I've learnt in the last year.

He's witty, but I don't feel like I have to put on conversational armor at every turn, and although I never talk about my family, for some reason, right at the minute, I'm telling him a funny story about my dad.

Neither of us have dressed up, the food is good, the wine is better…and so far, I don't seem to have forced him into any awkward conversational corners. I wonder if just maybe, I don't suck at this dating thing quite as much as I thought.

The time goes by so quickly that I almost can't believe it when we're drinking coffee and he's asking for the bill, because he needs to get to Newark in time to return his rental car and check in for the last flight back to Chicago.

He drops me off at my apartment on his way to the airport, and I've thanked him for the evening, and I'm just about to get out of the car, when he leans over and kisses me. It starts out as a peck on the cheek, and then he changes his mind and it turns into a proper kiss. I make the most of it; he tastes good, and I've been thinking about doing this since I first saw him. I remember how he looked, operating on Sam; his fierce concentration and deft movements; everything carried out with the calm confidence of someone who knows exactly what he's doing.

"So, you're free, then, there's no one else?" he says as we pull apart, a slightly anxious look in his dark eyes.

"Because there's a bit of an atmosphere in your team, and I thought, maybe…" he trails off.

I bring to mind the smell of Cuddy's perfume; it's a lot like her, dressy and beautiful with an underlying core of something sharper. I remember how it smelt in the early hours of this morning, filtered through the unmistakable aroma of leather, coffee and prescription strength medication that surrounds my boss.

And I smile, and say, confidently, before he can speculate any further:

"No, there's no one else."

He's not House.

I can live with that.

Chapter 23: House

I wake up well before Cuddy on Saturday morning. I notice one of her arms is draped idly on my chest, and I find the sensation of her bare skin against mine strange. Although waking up next to her is even stranger.

She's lying on her stomach, which is a shame; her naked breasts are inches away from me and I can't see them. This is unfair.

Whether what we're doing is right or wrong, waking up next to a naked Cuddy is actually a pretty good sight. I doubt she'll feel the same way though. Waking up next to a naked me, is probably not something she's had on any of her 'to do' lists for quite some time.

I suddenly notice that I can smell her perfume all over me; she must choose stuff that sticks to men when she screws them. It's probably such a rare occurrence she feels the need to mark her territory.

I look across and observe the great Cuddy at rest, relaxed, hair messily strewn all over my pillow. The pillow's probably going to smell of her shampoo long after she's gone, and the silence in the room is broken by the squeaky little snore that catches in her throat as she exhales slowly. I suppose I'd find it cute if I were as feminine as Wilson. But I'm not, so I don't; I just find it's annoying me really.

Her arms and legs are at angles and she's occupying at least two thirds of my bed.

Typical.

She doesn't change even when she's unconscious. She's still completely in control of everything around her; sounds, space, smells and any thing else that begins with S.

It's going to be weird when she wakes up. She'll probably hate herself like she did yesterday; in fact I'm sort of surprised she didn't creep off in the early hours so she could bypass the gracelessness of waking up naked in my bed.

I stare up at the ceiling, and it suddenly dawns on me that I don't know what the hell we're doing; it seems inevitable in one sense, but dangerous and stupid in another. The hospital is her life and mine too. The way things are between us may not be ideal, but it works.

Neither us can stand to have things change, surely?

This right here, and what we did last night is what I would call rocking the boat, asking for trouble. And I get the sense of my being the one to come out of this worse if it clouds or changes the relationship between us at work.

I carefully remove her hand and place it by her side, then I ease myself out bed; she's practically kicked me out of it anyway. I have no idea where I left my Vicodin but I need to find it quickly. My leg is pissed off, I suppose sex counts as physical exercise and it's not had this much to put up with in quite some time.

And that is not a thought I'm going to dwell on, because the last time…the last time was with Stacy. Getting laid regularly is great, I suppose, but when it's with your boss…potentially not so great. 

I get out of bed and the first thing I notice is my nakedness and the fact that it's very cold in here. Okay so I need to find clothes first and then Vicodin. I really don't think Cuddy wants to wake up to see my bare ass wandering around the room while I try and find my drugs.

I head for my closet, carefully avoiding the trail of clothes we left on the floor last night. I slide it open and grab a t-shirt and some boxer shorts then go to the living room. My Vicodin is sitting on the table next to the empty beer bottles. I take two and crunch them both and then sit still on the sofa until the ache in my leg becomes something closer to bearable.

After I have a quick shower and get half dressed I make a strong coffee and it's then I realize there is no food in the house; well nothing I can expect another human being to eat. There is some left over pizza in the fridge I might chance if I was on my own.

But I'm not, so I move it into the trash. If Cuddy wants feeding when she wakes up we'll have to go out. That's if she doesn't dart out of here like a spooked rabbit freed from a trap.

That visual – bizarrely - leads me to thinking, and then I get an idea and have a look for my spare bike helmet.

---

I take Cuddy a mug of coffee and place it by her on the bedside table; I'm chewing my lip in quiet deliberation: should I wake her or not? Then, she quietly clears her throat and opens her eyes.

She jumps a little when she notices me standing by the bed. I quickly point at the coffee so she doesn't think I've just been randomly standing watching her sleep.

"Hey," she offers gruffly. Maybe even a little hint of embarrassment in there.

She sits up, pulling the sheet from the bed around her body and I back off and stand awkwardly between the door and the bed.

"You got any plans today?" I ask, unsurely, rapping the fingers of my left hand against my leg as I tap my cane on up and down on the carpet.

She thinks about it. "I don't think so," she replies cautiously, while rubbing a tired hand across her eyes. Then she's giving me her schoolteacher look. Well this is my apartment and she's not in control here. So she can just cut that shit out, now.

"Good, we have plans," I say assertively; although I really don't feel as confident as I sound.

She frowns at me. "We do?" she replies uncertainly, and then reaches for the coffee.

"Yeah," I reply then leave her to get ready.

I find some jeans in the bathroom, put them on and then head into the living room and sit on the sofa. Cuddy takes a shower without asking, but I'm kind of glad she hasn't run out of here yet.

I suppose I can admit that her current state of mind is my fault, so it's only right I have a go at chilling her out. I'm bouncing my cane up and down on the floor when she comes in; I offer her an awkward half smile.

"What's this plan of yours? I could use breakfast and I really need to brush my teeth," she says. She looks crumpled, probably because she's wearing clothes that were not so neatly discarded on my bedroom floor all night.

"We can pick up a toothbrush on the way, and breakfast," I say.

"Where are we going? Your surprises are normally unsettling and / or scary," she comments, doubtfully.

I look away from her; I'm trying to do something nice, Cuddy, can't you just let me try? It only takes a little faith.

"Go home then," I say – way too defensively. I almost wince at the sound of it. She stands in the doorway and stares at me for a few moments. And I notice that not once since she's been here has she seemed relaxed.

"I just want to know where you want to go, that's all," she says, more softly.

"And I'd rather you wait until we get there, and if you can't have a little bit of faith in me, you may as well go home," I return.

"Fine," she says, sighing. "Come on, you grumpy bastard," she continues, heading for the door.

This sudden bitchiness makes me smile; that's more like it.

"You'll need this," I say, standing, and tossing her my spare bike helmet. 

She only just catches it, stooping and holding it inches from the ground. She finds a humorless smirk and shakes her head from side to side.

"No, no way, we'll take my car," she says strongly.

"Wimp," I say. This is my plan; we're doing it my way, or not at all.

---

"Be careful," comes the muffled warning from behind me.

"Don't you trust me?" I ask innocently.

"No," she shouts, I turn and knock her visor down so any more complaints will be suitably muffled even more.

Turns out my plan involved going to her place so she could get changed, 'because she's not getting her Manolos muddy.'

"When I lean into a corner, you need to come with me, or the bike won't corner so well because it will have fallen over and we'll fall off...which will be very messy and spill blood all over the road," I say, matter of fact. It's important to get these little details into the brains of pillion passengers.

I feel her start to get off, but I grab her by the wrists and pull her arms around me.

"It's easy; I'll go slowly until you get the hang of it, all right?"

There is a great reluctance in her arms; eventually she claps her hands together in front of me.

I zoom out of my road, just to wake her up, but then I drive it 30 mph slower than I ever have before.

Cuddy needs to get that bug out of her ass, what better way to do it than this? She follows my body when I corner; she's a fast learner. And I can feel her relax as we leave Princeton and arrive at some countryside. The mist is still low on the ground and I know she's watching the horses as we pass a large field with a picket fence around it.

It's Saturday; no need to rush anywhere. Not much traffic on the roads. The morning air is exhilarating when it hits you at 60 mph. I wait until I get a nice stretch of road and then carefully open it up, not quickly because this thing can jerk suddenly when you speed up and I don't want her to notice.

I manage to get it to 90 before she realizes we're speeding and I receive a tight chest squeeze for my law breaking ways.

I ease back down to 60 before she squeezes all the air out of me.

Chapter 23: Cuddy

I would say it's like a recurring nightmare, but so far I've only woken up in House's bed once this week, so that wouldn't be true. 

I'm tired and sweaty, I have a crick in my neck and my mouth feels like someone crawled in and fitted wall to wall carpet while I was asleep. And when I notice the man himself is looming over me, I'm not overly delighted, because I could have done with a minute or two to pull myself together.

Still, he brought me coffee, something it occurs to me he used to do, when we were students. That is, before one of us doing anything for the other became an automatic admission of guilt.

As he tries to stop me leaving – and how weird is that, that he's even trying – I'm trying to reason with myself, going through a mental list of all the reasons why this is fucked up and I should cut my losses and run right now. But against my will, I'm intrigued by what he's got in mind, and why he won't tell me what it is.

Also, if I'm really honest with myself, I have thought about what it would be like, having a ride on his bike. There's no way I would ever have asked, but when I realized he'd taken Allison Cameron on it, I felt…

Tell it like it is, Lisa, I say to myself, as I hold onto him, watching buildings and intersections speed by, then trees and fields; you were jealous.

And I still don't know where we're going, but I'm definitely enjoying the ride.

_To be continued…_


	9. Chapter 9

System Failure

Chapter 24: Cuddy

House takes Route 571 and continues over the lake and south east toward Princeton Junction. Wherever he's headed, I hope we get there soon, because the bike ride is exhilarating but I get the feeling my butt isn't going to thank me for many more minutes on this hard seat.

"Are we nearly there now?" I shout, above the deafening noise of the wind.

"What are you, five?" he yells back, and then adds, "It's a couple more miles."

As House wouldn't tell me where we were going, I'm wearing jeans, a t-shirt, my favorite red stripy scarf and a cord jacket, and right now I'm wishing I'd picked up gloves as well, because it's cold for this late in the spring. I rub my fingers together, to try to get some feeling back into them.

House pulls off the highway and makes a heart-stopping turn onto an unsurfaced side road. I just have time to read the sign, which says "Junction Rifle and Revolver Club: Members Only" in faded gold cursive script on a green background. You have got to be kidding me. No wonder he was being cagey about our destination.

We stop outside a battered one-storey wooden building and I'm about to ask House what he's thinks he's playing at, but I discover that the bike ride has solidified my legs to the point where I have to physically unstick myself from the saddle. By the time I've got myself disentangled from it and taken the helmet off, House has already disappeared inside the building, so I have no choice but to follow him inside.

"Haven't seen you in a while, Dr House," the dapper elderly man behind the cash register is saying, as he passes him a ledger and a pen.

"Yeah, well," House glances sidelong at me, as he scribbles his name down and hands his ID and credit card over, "My boss keeps me busy."

While he completes the transaction – ignoring my glare of doom – I skim the laminated notice in garish shades of yellow and red which is fixed to the counter. Apparently 'Prospective members must be of good character and must demonstrate a mature, responsible attitude toward firearms and safety.' I wonder for a second just how exactly House pulled that one off.

The man glances over at the CCTV bank, which is showing a group of over-excited teens on one screen and a couple of older adults firing rifles among the grass and trees.

"The Junior Rifle Team are indoors till noon, so you'll be on the outdoor range if that's okay?" he informs us, passing House two laminated badges across the pitted wooden surface of the counter.

"Line's hot," he adds, laconically, and House nods.

---

Ten minutes later, I'm wearing a pair of ear muffs in an unflattering shade of fluorescent orange, and sporting a set of yellow-tinted safety goggles. And holding…what is this?

"It's a gun, Cuddy," House says, loudly, so I can hear him through the fuzz of the ear muffs, "You know, as used by cops, robbers…"

"Is this the sort you killed my MRI with?" I ask, darkly. I needed that one added to my fundraising list like a hole in the head. Ooh, bad, bad imagery.

"No," he says, "This is a 9mm Luger, that was a –"

Whatever he's trying to tell me is drowned out by the loud explosion created by the check-shirted fat guy standing down the other end of the range from us, who is holding some sort of equally large, fat and scary-looking gun.

"You actually enjoy this?" I ask, incredulously, as I wait for the percussive sound to die away. And then it occurs to me what a stupid question that was. Dangerous weapons, noise, the opportunity to show off…of _course_ he enjoys this.

House doesn't answer me; instead, he takes the gun, puts his own earplugs in – why does _he_ get earplugs, I wonder – and shows me how to aim and fire it at the target.

It's easier than I expect and after a couple of demonstrations, I have a go myself, and while I don't hit the target first time, I get better with practice. House is, of course, insufferably accurate and nonchalant, and I wonder just how much he practices. After a while, he fetches his own gun, which it appears he keeps somewhere on the premises, and starts a friendly-ish competition with the fat guy.

Half an hour later, my ears are ringing, despite the ear muffs, the goggles are making my nose itch and my right arm and shoulder ache. But I feel good; I'm enjoying the opportunity to concentrate all my attention on one achievable thing, and seeing the results.

This is a side to him I've never encountered before. It's a small club, and nearly everyone we run into – idiotic giggling teens excepted – knows him by name. House actually chats to the fat guy, whose name is Pete, and to the man from the reception, who is called Harry, while we're drinking coffee in the very basic café round the back of the range. He introduces me as "Lisa, a work colleague," and I don't talk much, because this isn't my environment, and I can't join in the discussion of hollow point this and caliber that.

I must be looking at him oddly, because when they've gone, he says, "What? I can't have meaningless social interactions? Maybe I don't want them saying 'he kept himself to himself' when the cops are looking for the next Beltway sniper. "

I don't think he really minds, but to change the subject, I ask him where he learnt to shoot.

"On the base in Germany," he says, "On my dad's membership, when I was a teenager."

"It's just about the only thing we both agree is fun," he adds, loading his coffee with sugar and stirring it with more violence than necessary.

I look over at him, and think that he looks more relaxed than I've seen him in ages. And you know, this actually is fun. Next time he suggests a magical mystery tour, I might just give him the benefit of the doubt.

Chapter 25: Wilson

I'm running an iron over a light blue shirt I need for work on Monday. Wondering, as I do, what the hell is going on with House and Cuddy at the moment? They're up to something. And the only something they could be up to at eight p.m. on a Friday evening at House's place begins with an S, and ends with House getting fired if he screws everything up.

And how could he not? This is House and a woman, and not just any woman: the only one in his life who has any semblance of control over him.

How could he be so stupid…no wait, I've got that slightly wrong, how could _she_ be so stupid?

Why can I smell burning?

Oh crap; I yank the iron up…by the looks of it, my favorite blue shirt is ruined. I've just fashioned a six inch dark iron mark into the back of it.

I'm getting sick of all of this domestic stuff and I've only been doing it for a month. I need to incorporate ironing into the cleaner's list of things to do.

I give up ironing before I injure myself or the dog and go and sit in the lounge. I resist as long as I can but by midday I try House's cell, eager to fire some questions at him. I can't believe he hasn't told me the small fact that he and Cuddy are screwing now.

It would be better to do it face to face really, because then I can tell how much lying he's doing, but I also can't wait until Monday.

I dial the number and wait for House to pick up…which he doesn't.

Typical.

I hang up and stare at my cell for a moment.

It's probably none of my business, but House is so not ready for a relationship with anyone. Never mind his complete lack of social skills, there's the increasing drug addiction. So why on God's green earth he's gone for Cuddy I'll never know; they enjoy making each other miserable; they live for it.

This could be such a disaster; they work in the same place, if this screws up, they'll make each other's lives even more hellish. That would be fun to watch, but probably wouldn't be very nice for either of them in the long run.

Maybe they aren't screwing, maybe they were – discussing the case? I flick on the TV and half watch a baseball game.

Yes, Cuddy was at House's place Friday evening, discussing the case, right after he shaved his face, vowed to start wearing his lab coat on a daily basis and gave everyone on his team a pay raise in recognition of all the hard work they've put in this year.

They were absolutely having sex. There is no other reason two people who love to hate each other that much would be hanging out together on a Friday evening.

And then something horrendous dawns on me…my god, House is getting more tail than I am at the moment. It's official: my life is a complete mess.

I pick up my cell and try House's number again.

Chapter 26: House

The journey didn't take too long, but that doesn't stop Cuddy whining about her aching butt the minute we're out of earshot of the reception area.

I got inside the club before she even had her helmet off, but more importantly, before she could freak out.

She followed me in and gave me a dangerous smile coupled with the evil eye, but she pretended she was okay with everything when the poor guy on reception smiled at her. He even got some sort of fake smile in return. She probably realized she was going to look stupid if she kicked off about where we were, in the middle of the reception area.

It's not like she can do anything about it now, seeing as we're miles from anywhere with a bus stop or a train station. Little does she know she's going to enjoy herself today; hopefully she won't have an allergic reaction in the process. I'm off the clock.

I'm glad we're going to be hitting the outdoor range, it's a nice day. I notice that the weird fat guy is here again, he's here all the time. He should get out more; out of here at least.

I make like I know everyone here, even though I can only remember the names of two people, Harry on reception – because he had a badge on – and fat boy Phil…or is it Pete? Yeah it's… Pete.

I wish his name was Phil; fat boy Phil sounds way better than fat boy Pete.

"Is this your way of punishing me for making you drive by my place first so I could change?" Cuddy says miserably.

"I thought you might like to shoot stuff, make you feel better about all those unresolved issues you've got going on," I say, floating my hand near and around her to help her visualize the issues. Unfortunately I say it loud enough for at least two groups of people to hear as we head past them and they turn and stare at her, rather worriedly.

Suppose they don't like people with issues around here, wielding weapons, my bad. It's at this point I wonder why the hell I've brought Cuddy somewhere she could hypothetically pop a cap in my ass and claim it was an accident.

I turn away from her death glare and we head towards the end booth where Pete is. I can feel her gaze burning into my back.

I'm about ninety nine percent sure Pete has been here every time I've ever been to this place. I love that fact actually, because we always have this friendly little shoot off and I always win. And then those little veins in his neck always pop up briefly as he grits his teeth and smiles, pretending he doesn't really care that I kick his ass every time I pop in.

When his jaw muscles relax enough, he laughs light heartedly and informs me, 'no way would I beat him' if we were using rifles. I agree, for his pride's sake, but I'd probably take him with one of them too.

I show Cuddy how to aim, and she holds the gun like a girl, which is no surprise. I eventually have to reach around her and show her how to hold it properly. It's a bit awkward and I do it as quickly as possible, before she elbows me in the ribs thinking I'm trying to cop a feel. When I pull away, she gives me a strange look that I can't seem to hold onto, so I divert my eyes and start loading my gun.

Cuddy is surprisingly accurate; it's actually quite frightening how close to the center of the target she's getting towards the end. The ear protectors I chose for her are hilarious. I could have chosen simple plugs like mine, but this is funnier and if the helmet hadn't killed her hairdo, those heinous things sure have. Who spends fifteen minutes doing their hair when they know they're about to get onto a motorbike anyway? Serves her right

I glance across at her, and her face is completely serious; her arms are locked in front of her and she holds the gun steady and doesn't let it kick her back. She was a bit wobbly at first; I had concerns for any squirrels that might have been innocently gathering acorns in the immediate vicinity during a few of her first attempts, but she's really got into the swing of this fast.

She's in control, and I can tell she's zoned everything else out around her to help her concentrate. I didn't expect anything else from her really; and that's how I know my evil plan has worked, because I'm pretty sure David and the Coyote are far from her mind right now.

Pete can't resist a friendly little shoot off, and I can't resist betting him twenty bucks I get closer to the center of the target than he does on our first shot.

I win of course, but I don't take his money. I don't think he has a job, and it's not a wise choice to take money from people who have bumper stickers reading 'Yeah you can take my gun, when you come and prize it from my cold dead hands.'

I think he's into his hunting too. I've never been hunting, a lot of the guys around here are into that – not that I could do it now anyway – but that's not why I like shooting. I like the precision and accuracy involved. It takes time to master this, although you wouldn't be able to tell, judging from the state of Cuddy's target.

She must have done this before, surely?

We take a break and head for the café around the back. Cuddy grabs some coffees and we sit for ten minutes. I need to let my leg rest before the drive back

"So?" I enquire and then blow some air from one cheek to the next. I was going to say how are you feeling, but then realized we aren't teenage girls at a pajama party.

"So?" she questions back.

"You hate me and you have had the worst day of your life?" I suggest.

She smiles slightly and stirs her coffee as I raise my eyebrows.

"It was fun actually," she says. "It's helped," she continues. "Thanks,"

I stick my bottom lip out slightly and nod. I hope she's not going to start opening up or anything, I hope that's it. She stays silent for a few minutes, and I relax a bit.

I can't do heart to heart shit, not here especially; not the time or place.

She gives me a strange look, like she's about to ask me something, but she's not quite sure how to put it.

"You were right about the file and about David," she says softly. "But you were an ass, shoving it in my face the way you did," she adds, recovering her tough administrator persona.

I'm not really sure what to say, so I say nothing, and then my cell rings and I dig it out of my pocket, hoping it's one of the kids with a heads up on the case.

It's Wilson.

"Hey," I say into the phone, whilst holding the finger of my other hand to my lips so Cuddy doesn't say anything. She gives me a strange look but keeps her mouth shut, thankfully.

"Where are you?" Wilson says. I hold the phone away from my head and aim it in the general direction of the shooting range. I keep it there for twenty seconds and then return it to my ear.

"I'm at Disneyland," I say into the phone. "Mickey and Goofy just went postal; I'm hiding in a mushroom house with an Oompa-Loompa." Cuddy gives me another strange look, then rips the orange ear muffs from where they are resting on her head and gives me an evil look.

"Cheerful today," Wilson says, and I notice his words are laced with a slightly dangerous tone.

"I'm cheerful every day; I'm the very epitome of cheer. What do you want?"

"Just wondering what you're up to, not really seen much of you this week," Wilson says, in a strangely high pitched voice, like he's forcing the conversation out for the hell of it, and I'll be honest, it's very girly, very Wilson.

"Okay; I'd love to talk to you about knitting patterns but I'm busy shooting stuff at the moment Wilson, can I call you back later?" I say.

"Yeah, I did come by your place last night, thought you'd like to sink a few beers but I saw you had company, so I figured I'd leave you to it."

Oh crap. I get a look on my face that feels severely worried, and I assume it must look that way too, because Cuddy mirrors it and tilts her head.

I clear my throat. "What are you talking about?"

"Cuddy's car, parked outside your place," Wilson prompts.

"We were discussing the case," I say quickly, then close my eyes, because I have a feeling I know what he's going to say next.

"At eight p.m. on a Friday evening?"

I stare at Cuddy, she stares at me, and I swallow and then remove the phone from my ear and fake the best disturbance sound into I can into the receiver.

"We may have a slight problem," I say to her as I hang up on Wilson and turn off the phone.

Chapter 27: Cuddy

House didn't have to tell me who it was on the phone; there's no-one else he talks to like that. Or who would dare ask him what he's up to.

Wilson has managed to thoroughly burst my bubble, I reflect glumly, as I cling onto House for dear life while he takes the corner onto the highway much too fast. The bike's not any more comfortable the second time, in fact, I reckon I'm going to be walking like a cowboy for the rest of the weekend.

I could cheerfully kill my Head of Oncology right at this minute. Couldn't he have sat on his curiosity at least until Monday morning? Then I consider the fact that at least this way House and I will have the chance to plan our approach before we go back to work. That's if House will talk about it all. Maybe it'll just be easier to avoid Wilson for a bit. Although, crap…I'm pretty sure I said I'd sit in interviews with him all Monday afternoon.

The scenery flashes past and although the weather was sunny earlier, it looks like it's coming on to rain now. House is still driving far too fast. I wish he wouldn't, not just because I don't have a death wish, but also because the sooner we get back to Princeton, the sooner I'm going to have to have a conversation with him.

The rain hits just as we reach the Princeton city limits; big fat drops that run into my eyes and drip off the end of my nose. Great, just what I need, I think sourly, a cold shower.

---

My legs are so stiff when I jump down off the bike outside my place that I nearly fall over. I take my helmet off, which makes a trickle of rainwater run down my neck. I twitch a strand of my poor maltreated hair over my shoulder and inspect it. It looks like frizzy rat tails. I'm waiting for a mocking comment from House, and it surprises me when I don't get one.

He's still sitting on the bike, staring straight ahead into space, the rain beading on his helmet. I go round so he can see me.

"You're going to say, 'we need to talk', aren't you?" he says, morosely.

"Well, actually I was going to say, do you want some lunch? And maybe to borrow a towel? But yeah, we do need to talk."

I go inside. I don't want to get any wetter and I decide that it's up to him whether he comes in or not, I'm not going to try to persuade him.

I'm starving so I head straight for the kitchen, grabbing the hand towel from the bathroom as I go and trying not to look in the mirror.

My fridge doesn't have a whole lot that's edible in it. I'm pondering unlikely recipes featuring one egg, half an onion and a potato salad, when I remember I've got lasagna in the freezer. So I put that in the microwave to heat up, and start making a salad to go with it.

I'm just chopping the tomatoes when House limps into the kitchen, minus his helmet and jacket and sits down heavily at my kitchen table. He gets his Vicodin out of his jeans pocket and takes one. I've never actually invited him here before – although obviously he's been here, when Alfredo was sick, and then on Thursday night. I am suddenly surprised at just how angry I still feel about him letting himself and Chase in that time.

I've never invited him to my place for exactly the reason I feel angry – because I knew he would pick through all my stuff and make judgments. Well, that's what he does, but just because I work with him doesn't mean he's got the right to know everything about me.

Which he would if we were in a relationship. Whoa, where did that thought come from?

"Cuddy, stop thinking so much, it's making the air thick," House says, tiredly, leaning back in his seat. Water drips from his curly head and onto my kitchen floor. I pick up the towel from where I left it on the sideboard and throw it to him.

"I'll stop thinking if you stop making a mess of my floor," I say, tartly, and then I make myself busy finishing the salad, getting plates and silverware out and finding a mat to put the now bubbling hot lasagna dish on.

We eat in silence, pretty much. House is hungry too; at any rate, we finish the lasagna between us and I certainly don't eat half of it. I clear the plates away and make some coffee and we go and sit in the other room.

I can tell he's in pain after the bike ride, and sure enough, as soon as he's sat down on the couch, he props his right leg up on my coffee table, glancing at me because he's obviously expecting him to tell him off, but I don't. Let's face it; there are more important things to talk about at the moment than the state of my living room furniture.

I sit down beside him on the couch, leaving a cordon sanitaire of a couple of feet between us.

"Is this the part where you tell me we're colleagues and this will never work?" he enquires, at length, stirring sugar into his coffee. I'm amazed sometimes he hasn't rotted all his teeth.

"Is that what you want me to say?" I ask. He's still intensely interested in his coffee and not in meeting my eye.

"I don't know," he says, still not looking at me. It sounds like an honest answer. "If you'd told me two days ago that I could sleep with you twice and yet we wouldn't be looking for heavy objects to hurl at each other by now, I wouldn't have believed you. And this throws me."

I look at him. His eyes are red-rimmed and I wonder how much sleep he got last night. I imagine working with him every day if we choose not to pursue this; I think of how much harder it's going to be now I've been so fully reminded of what I saw in him in the first place. And then, I don't want to talk any more; talking is always what gets us in trouble.

So I lean across and kiss him instead, taking my time. He's a bit tense as first, but after a few moments he slides a hand under my hair and pulls me closer to him, but then he lets me go and moves away.

"Hang on – we haven't shouted abuse at each other yet. I'm not sure I can do this without foreplay?" he says, rubbing a hand over his bristly chin, in a quizzical fashion.

"It's okay, I'll give you a free pass," I tell him.

"But I _like_ arguing with you," he whines.

"I know," I say, smiling, because it's true, but he's never come out and admitted it in as many words before.

This is different to before. I actually had a choice here. There's going to be no passing this one off as a bad decision made while in an emotional state.

House guesses what I'm thinking.

"This is the third time…it could get to be a habit?"

"Would that be so bad?" I ask. I genuinely want to know. I can't make up my mind what I feel about all this.

"Have I got _any_ good habits?" he asks, and I shake my head, get up off the sofa and carefully settle myself back down in his lap.

Because what Wilson knows one day, the nurses will know the next. And the whole of PPTH will know the day after. It's pointless thinking we can keep this a secret, so we may as well enjoy it while we can.

It is different this time. We just neck for a long time, like teenagers, while the rain runs softly down the windows of my living room and the couch gives occasional creaks of protest under our combined weights. I remember we used to do this at Michigan, passing long hours on rainy Saturday afternoons when there was nothing on TV and we were both too hung over to face the library.

"Cuddy, you're thinking again," House says, when we've paused and finally, he looks at me directly, "Don't overdo it, will you?"

"I was just thinking that all this," I wave a hand, vaguely indicating the two of us, "All this started purely because you wanted to know who David was. Just your idle curiosity. And one thing led to another, it kind of mushroomed and now everything's different…but I'd never got over it in the first place; I can see that now."

House looks thoughtful and I'm surprised he hasn't got a comeback for that 'idle'. According to him, his curiosity is never idle.

"You've given me an idea," he says, sounding more cheerful than he has all day since Wilson called him.

_To be continued…_


	10. Chapter 10

**(Co-)Author's note:**

**Well, it's finally done. This all started when I picked up the book "Patient" by Ben Watt on a second hand bookstall in January this year. Snarkbait and myself had been talking about trying some co-writing for a while, and here was a perfect medical case. If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it - it's well written and very moving. **

**Seven months, 50,000 words and a whole pile of medical and other research later, we've finally finished. It's been a lot of fun and also really hard work, so thanks to everyone who has commented, because it's been encouraging to know you've been enjoying it. If you've been waiting to read until we completed it, let us know what you think. I hope you all like the ending! **

**Snarkbait: it's been huge fun writing with you, thanks for playing.**

**Finally, a big thank you for beta-ing this and previous parts so promptly, lea724.**

Chapter 28: House

Cuddy climbs off my lap so I can get up from the sofa and grab my cane. Then I retrieve my jacket and pull out my cell phone.

It's incredible I didn't focus in on the asthma before this moment; it's the key to everything.

"I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner," I say as I scroll through the numbers in my phone.

"Think of what?" Cuddy asks.

"I need to go to the hospital," I reply, and then I call Cameron.

"Where are you?" I say, instead of 'Hello.'

"At the hospital, like I'm supposed to be; it's my shift?" she replies. She sounds a little surprised to be getting a call from me.

"I need you to do some muscle and skin biopsies on our patient, then call Chase and Foreman and get them to meet us in the office when you're done," I say quickly, then hang up before she can reply.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" Cuddy says seriously as she gets off her sofa.

"I know what's wrong with the patient; I need to go to the hospital," I say, then I shrug on my damp jacket and grab my helmet. I reach the door and realize she's not following me.

"Are you coming then, or what?"

She thinks about the question briefly, then finds her full-on administrator mode and disappears, returning a few moments later with a waterproof jacket. She puts it on and we leave.

---

I'm the first to arrive at the office, which isn't a surprise, although as I start to write on the whiteboard I get a page from Cameron telling me she's about to do the biopsies and will have the results in an hour.

I write three words on the board, and then circle them.

1. Asthma

2. Neuropathy

3. Eosinophilia

Then I write three more words underneath those and place a question mark by each of them.

4. Extravascular eosinophils

5. Paranasal sinus abnormality

6. Pulmonary infiltrates

I stare at the board and ease back and lean against the conference table, tapping the marker against my chin.

If I can confirm any of numbers 4, 5 or 6, I'll have my diagnosis. And it's at this point I realize Chase already suggested it to me a few days ago, albeit quick fire with a bunch of other ideas. I thought he was grasping at straws so he could get out of here and go home on time.

I can't believe I missed it; my head's been up my ass. This is why physical distractions are a bad idea; my priorities over the past few days have been lodged a little south of where they should have been.

Chase is the first to arrive, closely followed by Foreman, who raises his eyebrows expectantly, giving me his bad ass 'This had better be good' look as he folds his arms in front of him.

"Take off asthma from this list and tell me what disease I have," I say to Chase.

He tilts his head and observes the board, but he offers nothing but a mild shrug.

"Come on, we've been playing this game all week; you had plenty of answers Thursday, give me some old ones if you can't find any new."

"Without the asthma, I'd say Guillain-Barré or Wegener's," Chase says assertively. Foreman nods his agreement.

I nod once, then look at the board. "Don't fall over, but I agree to now add the asthma," I say, looking from Foreman to Chase.

"How about…Guillain-Barré or Wegener's," Chase says sarcastically again, raising his eyebrows.

He's been here long enough to know only my sarcasm is funny, yet he still tries, poor little wombat.

"And that's why the kid is dying; now give me something special, clutch at one of those magical straws, Chase; this is about the time you start doing that normally."

Chase looks at Foreman, who shrugs.

"We've already ruled out Guillain-Barré and Wegener's anyway," Foreman says.

"For good reason, because it isn't either of those diseases, but if I'm right, then the disease our Coyote has mimics Guillain-Barré to the point that it rarely gets diagnosed before death."

"Like to share with the class?" Chase says; wow he's punchy today, he must have cancelled his yachting session for this.

"We've been overlooking the most obvious and vital clue the whole time, it's been staring us right in the face. Any guesses?

"Asthma?" Chase offers, uncertainly; he's only saying that because of what I asked him when he arrived.

"Asthma," I confirm. "But not just the fact that he has asthma, the thing we've been overlooking is that the onset of his other symptoms followed the first asthma attack."

I point at the board.

"Our sick Coyote has three points out of six. Now, what presents with asthma then moves through a progression of these symptoms and acts like Guillain-Barré?"

Both of them stare at the board. Chase comes a little bit closer and stuffs his hands into his pockets.

"It also does a pretty mean job of stopping you from breathing, erodes your gut and gives you my personal favorite, anal bleeding."

Their faces are still blank; I hate it when I have to spell everything out for them.

"Come on, think about it Chase; you already suggested it once," I say

He frowns and looks at me, then looks at the board again.

"Churg-Strauss?" he offers uncertainly.

"It would account for the respiratory failure, and the all out war declared on his gastrointestinal system. A diagnosis of Churg-Strauss can be made when our patient has four of these six conditions," I say, pointing to the symptoms on the board. "We only have three so far, so we need one more."

"He doesn't have paranasal sinus abnormality or any pulmonary infiltrates," Foreman helpfully informs me, like I'd have called them in if I wasn't ninety-nine percent sure about this.

Okay, I would call them in on a whim too, probably. But this isn't a whim. And it's at that point Cameron turns up holding a file of biopsy results in her hand.

"Find anything interesting?" I ask. We all stare expectantly at her. She gives us all a puzzled look and then pulls out a sheet of paper from the file she's holding and hands it to me

"Muscle and tissue biopsies demonstrate vascular infiltration with eosinophils," she says, as she hands me the sheet.

I smile at Foreman and he shakes his head; he hates it when I'm right, although you'd think he'd be used to it by now.

"Have I missed something?" Cameron asks.

I pull the lid off the marker and check off my fourth and final symptom for making my diagnosis.

"The patient is suffering from Churg-Strauss syndrome. I think someone should go and start him on glucocorticoids, stat, before our comatose Coyote croaks it," I say.

Foreman nods. "I'll do it right now," he says and leaves the room.

Chapter 29: Cameron

I'm smiling to myself as I enter Sam's biopsy results into my laptop. We've diagnosed the patient, so I feel happy about that, and I'm still on a high from last night. Nick texted me when he arrived at O'Hare, and then called this morning to invite me to go up and visit him next weekend.

I'm just wondering what it will be like to do more than kiss him, when a shadow falls over me. House. Who says, mockingly, "You're looking suspiciously cheerful at the moment, Dr Cameron; get lucky last night?"

It's too good an opportunity to pass up.

"I could ask you the same question, Dr House," I say, calmly, and he's actually speechless for a second, which gives me the chance to add, "I'll go check on the patient," and make a swift exit. I would have overlooked the perfume the other night, but honestly, if he wants to be stealthy, arriving with Cuddy on a Saturday afternoon is hardly the way to go.

When I get to Sam's room, Foreman is pushing the glucocorticoids, while Cathy looks on anxiously.

"So, you're sure about this?" she's asking, in a tone that suggests she wouldn't be surprised if we came up with another half dozen diagnoses before nightfall.

Foreman nods, and say, "Yeah, we're sure it's Churg-Strauss."

He finishes what he's doing, quickly checks Sam's stats, and gives me a look. I've worked with him long enough to interpret it as, 'Would you do the touchy-feely stuff?" and I'm inclined to humor him today. I'm in a great mood, and House did drag him back here about three hours after he'd got off his shift.

I sit and talk to Cathy for an hour, while we wait for the meds to take effect. I don't know enough yet about Churg-Strauss to answer all her questions – I'm hoping Foreman and Chase are reading up on it right now – but I do know that now we've got him on the right medication, the potential for getting the disease into remission is pretty good. What we don't know yet, of course, is what effect the loss of bowel is going to have. He's going to have a long recovery period, and he'll have to be really careful about his diet, probably forever.

Cathy takes this reasonably well; in fact, she pulls a notebook and pen out of her bag and starts writing down all the things she needs to find out about and take care of. I'm reminded that she normally spends her waking hours trying to keep four rock musicians out of trouble.

While she writes, I make a mental note that I should double check Sam's file before we discharge him, to make sure his doctors in Britain will be clear on everything – the last thing we need is to set back his recovery because there's confusion over a drug name or something. And how amazing is it that we can think about his recovery now, considering what state he was in yesterday morning?

I tell Cathy that we'll probably be able to extubate him later on if he continues to improve, and go to look for Foreman and Chase, so we can work out a treatment plan. I'm going to avoid House as long as possible; he's had far too long now to think of revenge for me being cheeky to him earlier.

Chapter 30: Foreman

I'm hooking Sam up to a banana bag when he comes around. I feel bad for his wife; she's been waiting for him to regain consciousness all morning and she's just left to get a coffee.

I hear him groan a little and he looks over at me.

"How are you feeling?" I ask.

"Shit," he croaks and then clears his throat, the simple action causing him to wince in pain.

He glances to the side of him.

"Where's Cathy?" he asks me worriedly.

"She just went to get some coffee; it's the first time she's left your side in about twenty-four hours."

"Is she okay?" he asks. It's hard not to find the question touching, seeing as he asks it before he asks about his condition.

"She's doing very well," I reply, reassuringly.

I carefully help him to sit up and then pull out my penlight. I check his eyes and reflexes; he's been out for a few days and I need to make sure there has been no neurological damage, but it doesn't look like there has been.

This is a good sign, because this poor guy really doesn't need any more problems.

The light seems to sting his eyes a little but he doesn't complain.

"So…I'm not dead then?" he observes when I pull away.

"No, but you are pretty damn lucky to be here. You have a condition called Churg-Strauss; Dr House made the diagnosis just in time. Your wife knows all about it and we've spoken to your doctor in England; he's setting up a recovery program for you for when you return."

"So I'm gonna be okay?" he asks. And there's no mistaking the hope in his voice.

I have to be honest with him; this disease is ruthless and deadly, he's very lucky to be alive and the survival rate post diagnosis, when one is made, is about fifty percent.

I place my light in my pocket.

"Churg-Strauss is a very rare disease and for it to present in the small intestine is rarer still. I think there have been about 30 cases in the past 25 years."

"Wow," he says shaking his head slightly.

"Yeah, your immune system became overactive and started attacking itself; that caused extensive cell damage to your small intestine. The drugs we used to combat the condition are cytoxic, which means they caused further cell damage. You're going to be feeling pretty crappy for the next few weeks."

"But I'll be okay?"

I look away from him briefly while I try and find the words to put this across to him.

"You lost a lot of your bowel Sam; it's going to be a slow recovery and there is no way to tell how the bowel damage is going to affect you in the weeks and months to come."

He nods. "I see," he says forlornly.

"But so far things are looking good; your body is responding very well to the treatment, and as long as you stick carefully to your treatment program there is a good chance you can make a full recovery, gastric problems aside."

He nods again. I hate to be so pessimistic and blunt but by rights this guy shouldn't even be alive; he's lucky to have made it this far. He needs to know he's not out of the woods yet.

At that point his wife returns. She doesn't quite know what to do with her coffee so I take it from her; she gives me a tired smile and I leave them to talk.

She's crying before I even leave the room and pulls her husband into a tentative hug.

He's going to have a really tough time, but he's clearly a fighter, and they seem to have such a strong bond between them. I'm sure with her help he can pull through it.

And I really hope he does.

Although, however bad I feel for the guy, I still don't like his music.

Chapter 31: House

I'm almost dreading Monday morning as I get ready for work. I've not spoken to Cuddy since Saturday. I figured we both needed a day apart to think about things, what we've done and how it's going to change our working lives, because I think we both know it's going to.

I'm not sure how I feel about that because any change in our behavior towards one another is going to be blatantly obvious to the people around us.

When Wilson enters my office about half an hour after I get to work, he's got that smug, knowing look on his face. I normally try not to care what he thinks he does or doesn't know about me.

But this isn't just about me.

I don't want him spreading this around; it's obvious he knows something, and he can usually tell if I'm lying when he has a good lead. Cuddy's car outside my apartment on a Friday night is about as good a lead as he could get.

I don't want anyone to know about this yet, though. It will come out eventually; this kind of thing always does. But it would have been nice to have a week or two to get my head around it, because despite his obvious lack of breasts and nursing qualifications, Wilson is the biggest gossip in this hospital.

I could tell him to back off I suppose, because it's none of his business. But he'd just call me a hypocrite. I could deny it, but he'd know I was lying, so I think I'm going with the silent defense. He can answer his own questions and come to his own conclusions because I'm not helping him pick me apart.

The truth is I don't know how I feel about what has happened, I do know I don't regret anything, and I think Cuddy feels the same way. How that's going to affect things from now on is an unknown, all I do know is that I could have done with a little bit of time before Wilson starts to analyze everything.

The truth of the matter is, his advice tends to worm into my head and stay in, and however much I try to block him out, his words soak into my subconscious. I would like to come to a conclusion on this without his bias clouding my decision.

Because he'll think it's a bad idea.

I look up from my PSP long enough to acknowledge his being in the room when he enters, then I carry on playing NFL Street.

He sits in the chair opposite me and I do my very best to ignore him. I know he's staring at me…waiting.

"Heard you solved the case," he offers eventually. "Think you'll get a name check on the next album?"

"Name check," I scoff. "I think concept album based on my medical abilities would be more acceptable, seeing as how I saved his life."

"Yes, now you mention it, I'm sure insufferably grouchy bastards are the muses of rock stars around the globe; forgive me for selling you short," Wilson offers sarcastically.

"I suppose you had an interesting weekend then?" he then asks curiously. I give him a quick look and watch as he takes a sip of coffee. I notice the cup bears the logo from the shop around the corner from the hospital. Selfish Wilson, could have brought me one.

"Not really, you?" I say.

"Nope," he replies quietly, and then he places his finger on his chin, looks into the corner of the room in thought and pretends to think.

Here it comes.

"Although I think I may have unearthed some really juicy gossip," he says.

I carry on playing the game, even though his distraction has enabled the computer team to score a touchdown.

Stupid Wilson.

He's going to try and screw with me; I can almost hear the malevolent little cogs inside his head turning with joy as he thinks of how to do this to get the maximum discomfort out of me.

And it occurs to me our friendship is all kinds of messed up.

Well, I'm not giving him an inch. Anything he gets out of me, he'll have to drag out kicking and screaming.

"What sort of gossip are we talking about?" I ask, making my reply sound as bored as I possibly can.

"Oh the best kind; it involves a doctor you and I know very well getting it on with another doctor," Wilson says carefully.

"Really; and how is this any of your business?" I say uncomfortably.

I glance at him quickly and then focus my attention back on the game. Even though I've lost the match and it's resetting itself, I tap the buttons like I'm still playing.

"It's not, but I thought you might like to know, because it does sort of involve you," he says.

"Leave it Wilson," I say dangerously; if he's not going to have the decency to come out and say something he can shut up and go away. I'm really not in the mood for playing games.

"Touchy, so you already know then? Are you going to talk to her about it?" Wilson says.

"If this is about Cuddy's car being at my place you're barking up the wrong tree, she was worried about the case…"

Wilson screws up his face as if he has no idea what I'm talking about.

"Ahh…I'm not talking about Cuddy or her car, I was referring to Cameron and Chen, and the fact that they hooked up recently."

"What?" I say slightly surprised, not quite expecting that.

That little shit Chen; how dare he tap someone on my team up, sneaky.

I try and gather myself a little. "I don't see how that involves me."

"He lives in Chicago, doesn't he? Didn't think you'd want her leaving your team,"

"She'll be leaving the team when her fellowship is up anyway, but she can't do it before because of that thing, what is it…hmmm a little piece of paper, I think they call it a contract," I say and glare at him.

Wilson gets up and I'm pleasantly surprised because I think he's actually going to leave without a lecture. He reaches the door, pulls it open and then almost leaves, but he just can't help himself.

"Oh, and as for offering Cuddy off the clock medical advice," Wilson says. I look up at him.

"I think that's the sort of thing you need to be really careful about," he says seriously. "Could become a habit, and if you piss her off, you'll never find another Dean of Medicine who puts up with your crap the way she does."

I nod, and I can't hold his gaze. "Noted," I offer uncomfortably. For all of his conceited little looks when he has something on me, the reason his advice sticks in my head is because he's normally right.

But then again, I reflect, when he's closed the door behind him; it's not like he practices what he preaches.

_Two weeks later_

Chapter 32: Cuddy

Sam comes to see me just before he's discharged. He's in a wheelchair, but he's pushing himself, his biceps standing out with the effort. The doors to my office aren't very wheelchair-friendly, so I jump up to let him in. He's looking pale and thin; he wasn't exactly fat when he was admitted, but now his skin looks as though it's been stretched tightly over the bones underneath, and his black jeans and faded green t-shirt are hanging loosely on him.

After I've asked how he's doing, and he's told me, Fine, which I suppose is true enough compared to how he was, he hands me an envelope. I turn it over curiously and open it. It's not sealed, and it holds precisely one piece of paper.

"This is very generous," I say, slowly, putting it back down on my desk. "Are you sure you can afford it?"

"Are you kidding?" he says, with a flash of his heartbreaking smile. "Do you know how many more people bought our CD after all that unsolicited press coverage? You can't buy that sort of publicity, my agent tells me."

"Well, normally, for this sort of amount you'd get a wing named after you, at least…do you have anything in mind?" I ask, still mentally reeling at just how much this is going to improve the look of my next board report.

"No, you're all right. Dr Chase tells me most of the defining features of Churg-Strauss were discovered at autopsy…I'm just glad to be alive. Do something useful with it," he says and it occurs to me that I know exactly what I'm going to spend it on.

I can't wait to tell House.

Chapter 33: Wilson

Cuddy and I are five minutes into our meeting to discuss oncology staffing when the phone rings. She says, "I'm in a meeting, can I call you back?" but the person obviously says no, because she glances up at me apologetically. I'm guessing donor, or maybe one of the older board members; it's definitely someone who likes the sound of their own voice, because Cuddy's hardly getting a word in.

She's now saying, "No, I don't think it would be fair to argue that at all!" in a tone which is equal parts emollient and aggressive, while she fiddles angrily with her pearls, and I'm starting to feel a bit uncomfortable about sitting in on an actual argument. I decide to retreat into the outer office until such time as it seems safe to come back in.

While I'm waiting out there, trying to decide which looks less boring, the Journal of Healthcare Management or Newsweek, a pretty girl in a smart black suit walks in. I don't know her name but I think she works in the press office. She looks through the glass doors, obviously figures it's not a great moment to interrupt and then turns to me.

"Are you about to go into a meeting with Dr Cuddy?" she asks, and when I nod, hands me the piece of paper she has in her hand, and says, "Would you be able to give her this then? She said she wanted to see it as soon as possible."

"No problem, Keira," I say, checking her name badge, and doing my level best not to check out anything else. She smiles gratefully, and clicks away quickly on her high heels.

I have a brief battle with myself over whether I ought to read it, but it's not even in an envelope, so I don't feel too bad.

It's a press release, marked "Draft: For Approval," and titled _David Cuddy Teenage and Young Adult Health Center to be built at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital._

_The new Teenage and Young Adult Health Center at Princeton-Plainsboro is designed to meet the total medical and health care needs of youths aged 12 to 21. Board-certified pediatricians and internists with specialized training in adolescent medicine focus both on immediate problems while also assessing future health risks. Also assisting teens as issues arise is a team of psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, nurses, health educators and substance abuse specialists._

_In addition to routine medical care, the Center offers such specialized services as the evaluation and treatment of eating disorders, puberty and growth concerns, menstrual and gynecologic disorders, attention deficit disorder and abdominal pain, headaches and fatigue. _

_The foundation of the Center has been made possible by a private donor who wishes to remain anonymous._

Well, I can guess who the private donor might be; I saw how happy Cuddy was just after we discharged the guitarist and it wasn't purely because House saved his life. I know she was really, genuinely glad he recovered, but I also know that particular relaxed look she gets when we're in the money.

Then it strikes me that I still don't know who David is; unlike House, I don't spend my whole time nosing about in my colleagues' private lives. Although, I guess, if the guy's getting a whole new building named after him, it would be all right to ask.

Cuddy puts the phone down and waves me back into her office. I notice her hands are shaking slightly and her face is flushed. The scarlet clashes unpleasantly with the sea-green suit she's got on today.

"Everything okay?" I ask, cheerfully, expecting her to say, "Fine."

"Not really," she replies, surprising me. "Would you say dating House is a career-limiting move?"

I choke and it takes me a minute to recover myself. When I do, Cuddy has regained some of her own composure.

"That was Nancy on the phone," she says, "She wanted to tell me that if I'm going to pursue a personal relationship with Dr House then she's resigning her seat on the board."

"Well, every cloud has its silver lining," I say, gravely, and look up at her. Her eyes are sparkling with mischief but she doesn't laugh. I know she's had a lot of practice at keeping a straight face, but I can't help it; the thought of Nancy Sidebotham, with her ridiculous curly blue rinse getting her panties in a bunch over who the Dean of Medicine is sleeping with cracks me up.

"Is there an actual rule against you having a personal relationship with one of your staff?" I inquire. It hadn't occurred to me to wonder, because, to be honest, I had assumed House would screw this up spectacularly, long before anyone got around to checking the fraternization policy.

"As it happens, no," Cuddy says, "Not as long as I declare it and absent myself from any meetings concerning the relevant person's employment."

Well, that should cut down on her meetings. Hang on a minute; I'm on the board, why didn't I know this already?

"I sent a note with next week's board papers," she says, reading my mind. I decide to ignore her look; there's no rule says you have to read meeting papers in advance, and I'm drowning in staffing paperwork at the moment.

"Nancy's the only one who's actually resigned," she continues, "Although Rod's secretary rang up to pass on his message that it was too late for an April Fool's joke."

"Well, you can count on my support," I say, softly, "Although I think you're both–"

I try to think of a nicer way of saying crazy.

"Crazy?" Cuddy suggests, and we both laugh this time.

I suddenly realize I'm still holding the press release, so I pass it over the desk to her.

She skims it, and I see the last of the tension from her phone call vanish from her shoulders.

"I read it," I say, cautiously, "I hope you don't mind?"

"No, of course not," she says, "It's going out later today anyway."

I decide I may as well chance it.

"Who's David?"

Cuddy looks at me, smiles in an odd way I can't quite interpret and says, "My brother. My older brother. He died when I was twelve."

You'd think, wouldn't you, that I would have had plenty of practice with useful platitudes for awkward, tragic situations by now. But I'm embarrassed about the conversation we had before, along with the fact my mind's now in overdrive wondering how the hell she and House are still speaking, never mind whatever else they're doing.

"It's okay," she says, picking up on my confusion, "There's no reason you would have known. I've never mentioned him to you."

"House–"

"Is an ass. What else is new? But he told me some things I needed to hear."

"Yeah. He does do that," I agree, and I sense that she doesn't want to discuss this much more, so I pick up the staffing file again, and say, "Back to business, then?"

And she wipes her eyes, and says, "Right, back to business."

Chapter 34: Chase

Things have been quiet since we discharged Sam; we've had a few patients, but nothing out of the ordinary. I'm still riding pretty high on the fact I got the right diagnosis, even if I was idiotic enough not to realize it. I thought of it, right? That means I can do it again.

At least House has stopped sighing every time he looks at me. In fact, he seems pretty cheerful altogether at the moment – he keeps singing to himself, and yesterday he told me I should write Sam's case up. All right, he did add, "Anything to stop Cameron and Foreman fighting over it," but he still said it. There's no way his good mood can last, so I'm going to make the most of it.

It's my day off and I'm doing a shift in Peds. I do need the cash, but I like it here. It sounds like an awful thing to say about sick kids, but I actually find it quite relaxing. Kids don't come with all the baggage adults do, and even when they've got serious things wrong with them, they're still kids. They want to play and mess about; they have fights with their sisters and brothers and someone's always got the latest gadget that everyone's after.

I'm just helping Ellie, a twelve year old with leukemia to make a playlist on her I-pod, while we wait for her tests to come back, when I notice a group of people enter the ward.

Cuddy's with them, so I assume they're donors. They always want to see the children's ward. Even with no hair, brows or lashes, Ellie's a strikingly pretty girl, and soon enough, they're headed our direction.

Now that they're closer though, I don't think they are donors. These three look to be in their thirties, and donors are usually much older. The two to Cuddy's left must be twins, they're so alike. Although one's dark and one has blonde highlights, their facial features are identical. And oddly familiar. They're both good-looking women, but the other is stunning; brunette, curvy – she's nearly bursting out of her cherry red dress – and with an engagingly mischievous expression.

"Dr Chase, I'd like you to meet my sisters," Cuddy says, and as soon as the words leave her mouth, the family resemblance is completely obvious, "Ruth and Rachel," she says, indicating the pair of twins, "And Jenny," waving at the other, younger one.

"So, how do you like our hospital?" I ask, politely, "Or have you been here before?"

"No, never," says Jenny, breathlessly. "It's very impressive," she glances at Cuddy, "And I had no idea Lisa was so important!"

Which makes me want to smile, although I don't. It's nice to know everyone goes home, gets patronized by their family and made to do the dishes, or whatever, however exalted they might be at work.

They stay a few more minutes, while Cuddy shows her twin sisters all the latest equipment and introduces them to a few more of the patients. Meanwhile, Jenny sits on the end of Ellie's bed and chats to her about the music she likes, and lets her try on her necklace, and asks me where I'm from in Australia – which makes a pleasant change from having to field random questions about Britain.

"I think she liked you," says Ellie, seriously, when they've all gone, fiddling with the flowery scarf she's wearing gypsy-style on her head.

"Oh really? Why?"

"Because she gave me this for you."

I look at the piece of paper Ellie's just handed me.

It's a cell phone number.

_A year later_

Epilogue

She would never get tired of this, Cathy decided, as she stood in the wings of the Continental Airlines Arena, watching as Sam played the final guitar break in 'Don't stop now.' His black t-shirt was soaked through with sweat and his dark hair, which had been spiked up with gel earlier was now slicked flatly across his forehead.

Peter, the singer, was in a similar state, and as Cathy watched, he peeled his shirt off and threw it to an ecstatic fan, who immediately put it on. Ew, thought Cathy; the thrill of band members' used clothing had worn off for her around the time Peter had wanked into a sock and left it in her sleeping bag.

It was the third stadium concert the Coyotes had done in less than a week, and she'd heard all the songs dozens of times before, but this tour was special, and not just because they were playing 20,000-seater arenas this time. This was the tour no one thought would happen. Cathy doubted anyone could possibly tell just by looking at her husband that this time last year, he was as close to death as anyone could be.

The final chords of the song he'd written for her echoed around the stadium; the band had taken to playing it as their final encore. They claimed this was because it sent the crowd off in a good mood, which was true, but Cathy thought their superstitious dread of a repeat of last year's events had something to do with it as well. She'd noticed that they'd all been cutting back on the drink and drugs lately, even Peter. Evidently if _Sam_ could keel over in the middle of a song, then anyone who smoked dope for breakfast, lunch and tea was just asking to pop his clogs.

She looked over to the wings on the other side of the stage, where their guests were. She'd put a chair there for Dr House earlier, but he'd spent most of the gig standing, although she noticed he was leaning a bit on Dr Cuddy now. Had they been a couple last year, when she and Sam were in the hospital? She didn't think so, but then, she'd had other things on her mind at the time.

Sam was calling them Greg and Lisa, but she just couldn't bring herself to do likewise. It was all right for him; he'd mostly been unconscious on a drip when the doctors were all that were standing between him and an early grave. She shivered; she completely understood Sam's hatred of hospitals now, although ironically, now he'd spent so much time in them, he didn't seem to mind them quite so much.

The two doctors had arrived around 6pm, by Sam's invitation, and had had dinner with the band, followed by a tour backstage in the arena. Dr House had got to play Sam's Gibson Les Paul, which had actually made him crack a smile. He'd played better than Cathy had expected him to; she had a feeling he probably did everything better than she expected him to.

She still hadn't forgiven him for the way he'd behaved to her in the hospital. She'd been scared, and alone, and thinking her husband was going to die. Considering the only reason he hadn't was because Dr House had figured out what was wrong with him in time, this was a wrong and ungrateful way to feel, she knew, but it was a fact.

And they were both coming for a drink after the gig; great. Never mind, she reflected, it wouldn't exactly be the first time she'd had to spend the night at a post-show party with an arrogant git she wanted to punch in the nose. She felt that way about Peter most of the time.

---

Obviously, because she didn't much want to chat to Dr House, he and Dr Cuddy were the first people Cathy saw when she walked into the party back at the hotel. She noticed the rest of his team were here too, keeping a careful distance from their boss – she'd sent them an e-mail as soon as the tour dates were confirmed, offering them as many tickets as they wanted – she'd had to draw the line at having the whole lot backstage, though. She made a note to say hello to Dr Cameron, because she honestly didn't think she would have got through the whole experience last year without her.

The band hadn't arrived yet; they were always last, because they had to shower and get changed, and Sam always signed a lot more autographs than Cathy privately thought was necessary.

"Hi, what did you think?" she asked Dr House, because she had to say something, seeing as he was standing right in front of her.

"They're better-looking than the Devils, but the amount of random violence was disappointingly low," he offered, and with that, he limped off toward the bar.

"It's okay if you still want to kill him," Dr Cuddy said, matter-of-factly, when he was out of earshot, and when Cathy was too embarrassed to respond, she added, "That's the effect he has on most people. It's normal."

"Really?" Cathy asked her. She had assumed she was being uptight and British; for all she knew, American doctors normally behaved like House did.

"Yeah. I want to kill him a lot of the time myself, but somehow he always gets the job done," Dr Cuddy admitted, "Doesn't Sam ever annoy you?"

"What, you mean, like when he has a song idea at three in the morning and he has to get up and try it out, right away?"

"Exactly. I've lost count of the number of times I've woken up alone because Greg's had an inspiration and rushed back to the hospital."

Cathy liked this woman. She couldn't imagine why anyone would want to date Dr House, but if someone had to, it should be someone who could keep him in line.

Suddenly, she remembered something.

"How's it going, that new building you were working on?"

"It's going really well. We broke ground last month. My parents are making the trip out next week to take a look," said Dr Cuddy, looking very happy about it.

---

It turned out to be a good party, despite Cathy's earlier misgivings. She talked to Dr Cameron – Allison – who seemed a lot more relaxed than she had last year; admired her engagement ring, privately thinking that American medics must earn a hell of a lot to afford rocks like that, and heard about her plans to move to Chicago when her fellowship was up. Her colleague, the Australian one, whose name she couldn't remember, told her he'd written Sam's case up as a paper, and said she could have a copy if she liked.

"I think I'll pass on that one," said Cathy, shuddering at the thought. It was odd what other people found interesting; even easy-going Sam was getting incredibly bored of having to talk more about his health than his latest release every time he did an interview, while she'd taken to carrying leaflets from the Churg-Strauss Syndrome Association around with her to avoid the constant explanations.

She managed to avoid Dr House for the rest of the evening, although that meant avoiding Sam, too, because there was obviously some sort of unwritten male rule that handing over your Gibson made you a friend for life. And as the hotel had a convenient grand piano, a jamming session was now in progress on the opposite side of the room.

Finally, around 3am the room began to empty, and she was thinking wistfully that it would be nice to get a few hours sleep before they had to pack up and move on to Toronto tomorrow.

She glanced around the room, wondering if it was safe to leave the hotel staff to get on with clearing up. It didn't look like anyone was going to be throwing their telly out of the window tonight: she could see three roadies playing a drinking game; House's other colleague, the sympathetic dark-haired one, chatting up the barmaid; one of the drivers having a row with his girlfriend on his mobile…and doctors House and Cuddy, snogging like teenagers in the corner behind the piano.

She watched as they drew away from each other; Dr Cuddy had her back to her, but she could see the expression on House's face.

Cathy recognized that look. It was the same one that had been on Sam's face the day they got married; it was one that said, I'm yours, and I always will be.

It was time to find Sam and tell him she loved him.

THE END


End file.
